The Weakness In Me
by jaxlewis
Summary: Set during and after the Chojin Olympics final, this is a little look at the feelings of Rinko, Kevin and Mantaro, moving into an AU storyline about these three after Kevin's victory.
1. History Repeating

I didn't honestly think I would ever write fanfiction, but decided to give it a try anyway. I hope I can keep everyone as in-character as possible – if I fail, I promise to stop posting. Based on the manga version, and using original names.

Chapter 1: History Repeating

Rinko hummed quietly to herself as she left the bathroom, tucking her hair behind her ears a little tighter than usual. As she withdrew her hands she noticed that she had chewed her fingernails again although she could not really remember when she had done so. She began to hum a little louder and more forcefully as a sense of irritation began to set in. She told herself that she was merely annoyed at herself for ruining her fingernails and nothing more and started down the stairs to make herself breakfast; which of course she would not be eating because her stomach was in a knot of nerves, but she had to at least go through the motions of acting normal under Mari's watchful eye.

Rinko slowly and gently closed her fists to hide the evidence of her nervous habit and forced herself to stop humming and look cheerful as she began to descend the steps. But she did not get far before her false smile faded and her feet began to slow beneath her, her head tilting a little in curiosity at the muffled sounds below her. She could hear Mari moving about in the kitchen, which of course was not unusual, but she could also hear what sounded like a weak and dying animal whining away the remainder of its life somewhere in the vicinity of the dining room.

Rinko stopped about halfway down the steps and lowered herself to a crouch, clasping the railings of the banister and peeking through them at the dining room doorway, where she could just make out one end of the dining table. She could not find a source for the odd sound but she did not need to look for long. Mari shortly stepped into her line of sight, placing down a large bowl of food in the centre of the table. A large pair of hands eagerly grabbed the bowl up and Mari smiled almost lovingly as she watched something that was beyond Rinko's sight. Rinko sighed quietly as she heard Suguru Kinniku happily devour what her nose was telling her must be yet another beef bowl.

She stood up and began quietly slinking her way down the remaining steps, listening carefully as she went. Suguru had finished his meal before Rinko had reached the bottom step, and by the time she had crept over to the doorway he was asking Mari for another bowl. Rinko carefully peeked around the doorframe, finding Suguru sat at the dining table smiling dumbly up at Mari, one hand holding his empty bowl and the other outstretched and upturned expectantly. Mari looked a little anxious and unusually girlish to Rinko as she slowly shook her head at the king.

"Don't you have a fight today?" Mari asked gently.

Suguru's face dropped and his hands slowly lowered to the surface of the table.

"It's part of the opening ceremony for the big final, isn't it?" Mari added.

Suguru still looked perplexed, making Rinko roll her eyes and bite back the urge to growl in frustration at his stupidity.

"Remember?" Mari tried again.

"Oh, yeah, of course!" Suguru said, grinning again. "I remember!"

Mari nodded and took his empty bowl from him. His smile vanished again as he watched Mari move over to the kitchen sink and add his bowl to the pile of dirty dishes before returning empty-handed.

"There's more beef in the pot, right?" he asked as Mari pulled out a chair to sit down opposite him.

"Well, yes, but…"

Mari paused, squatted over the chair she had been about to sit into, studying Suguru's expression curiously.

"I really don't think you should be filling up on beef bowl before a fight," she said slowly. "It's not good for you. We could have the rest later on, when Mantaro gets back."

"What are you talking about?" Suguru asked her.

"After the… After the big fight between Mantaro and Kevin Mask?"

Rinko began to wonder why her normally sensible and astute guardian became such a clueless idiot around a clueless idiot like Suguru Kinniku. There would, of course, be no later on. After the final round of the Chojin Olympics had ended Mantaro and Suguru would return home to celebrate or commiserate the result and Mari would be unlikely to see her old friend until the next Chojin Olympics, whenever that would be.

When Rinko had first found out about Mantaro's father and his connection to Mari it had fascinated her. Hearing about her mother being a young girl in love with a superhuman wrestler had seemed so endearing a tale; but since Suguru's arrival a few days earlier Rinko had begun to see the matter a little differently. What had once been a cute little story of young love was now a rather sad and somewhat pitiful story of unrequited love that had lasted two decades and was in danger of transcending a generation and manifesting itself in Rinko's relationship with Mantaro.

Rinko slid back from the doorway and pressed herself against the hall wall, her mind recapping the events of the last few days. Suguru Kinniku and a selection of the other Legends had arrived for the final of the Chojin Olympics and Mari had insisted on meeting him at the airport. She had said they were meeting him to tell him about Mantaro's disappearance and to enlist his help tracking the cowardly prince down; but Rinko had seen something slightly different play out when the tall pig-faced man in the gaudy yellow silk suit adorned with red suns made his appearance. Instead of actually greeting each other, Mari and Suguru had grabbed onto each other's hands and simply stared at each other with idiotic grins of disbelief and tears in their eyes.

Part of Rinko was pleased that Suguru had been so overjoyed to see Mari again but a bigger part of her felt angry and saddened that Mari had remained single on behalf of what was basically an older, slightly smellier and slightly less vain Mantaro Kinniku. Rinko had to tell Suguru why they were meeting him, as Mari appeared to have forgotten, and although he appeared concerned at first he quickly forgot about the problem when they all arrived back at Suminoe Kindergarten, where he promptly began reminiscing with Mari about the good old days.

Despite pretending she was not really interested in their exchanges Rinko had heard enough and seen enough to determine that Mari still had feelings for Suguru and that Suguru had once cared about her and chased after her as vehemently as Mantaro pursued Rinko; but a chirpy blonde girl with a penchant for brash and skimpy outfits had been sufficient to lure Suguru from Mari and Mari seemed quite accepting of that fact, even admitting that she was not as bold as Bibinda and therefore not an ideal match for Suguru. The result of which was Rinko asking herself if she was somehow destined to follow in Mari's footsteps, playing the role of the girl who the Kinniku prince chased after, the girl who supported and encouraged him until he found someone a little more exciting to devote his time to leaving her to retire to the life of a lonely woman who ran the kindergarten.

After another glance into the dining area to confirm that Mari was sufficiently preoccupied tending to Suguru Rinko hurriedly and silently made her way out of the house. Once outside she started in the direction of her friends' homes, telling herself that she would go with them to the Tokyo National Stadium and meet Mari there. But Rinko did not have to travel far before she caught sight of Keiko walking towards her.

"Hi Rinko!" Keiko called to her.

"Hi Keiko," Rinko replied, slowing as she neared her friend.

"I was just coming over to your place," Keiko said.

Rinko stopped in front of Keiko and looked about herself with a small frown.

"Where's Tamaki?" she asked.

"Huh?" Keiko asked.

"Tamaki, where is she?" Rinko asked again.

"Oh, right, yeah, she um… She's over there."

Rinko turned in the direction Keiko appeared to be pointing, seeing nothing but strings of wrestling fans with painted faces, giant foam hands and home-made costumes of both Kid Muscle and Kevin Mask. She eventually located four people not adorned in fan clothing, quickly identifying them as Tamaki, Terry the Kid, Terryman and a woman she assumed must be Kid's mother.

"I think she has a bit of a crush on Kid," Keiko whispered.

Rinko turned back to Keiko who was grinning cheerfully and apparently saw nothing wrong with whispering when the people in question were considerably out of earshot.

"They would make a really cute couple," Keiko added, still in a whisper. "Like Kid's parents, Terryman and Natsuko."

Rinko felt her eyebrows shoot upwards and she turned back to the foursome, studying them a little more carefully before turning back to Keiko again.

"Keiko, do you ever wonder about fate?" she asked.

Keiko frowned and tilted her head to one side to regard Rinko as though she had suddenly gone a little insane.

"You mean like astrology?" she asked.

"No, I mean like destiny," Rinko explained. "Like maybe our lives have already been decided, and we're just making decisions and hanging around the people we're meant to be."

"Oh, I get it!"

Keiko giggled a little into the palm of her hand which only served to irritate Rinko.

"No, I don't think you do," Rinko insisted. "I've been watching Mari with Suguru Kinniku, and I think maybe that's just like me and Mantaro. And now Tamaki is hanging around Kid just like Terryman and his wife did when they were out age."

"Yeah, you're talking about love!" Keiko replied.

"No, I'm talking about our futures."

"You're talking about you and Mantaro and Tamaki and Kid."

"Yes… But not the way you think…"

Rinko and Keiko exchanged confused looks until they were interrupted by Tamaki who joined them looking a little flustered. She began talking about Kid and Keiko squealed excitedly along with her leaving Rinko alone with her thoughts. And her thoughts mainly concerned the fact that she appeared to be repeating Mari's life, as though it was her purpose in life to play the Kinniku prince's love interest as long as it was convenient for him, and apparently even her own friends saw it and thought it seemed like the right thing for her to be doing with her life.

Rinko wanted to dismiss the idea from her mind but she could not deny that she had feelings for Mantaro, even to the point that she had turned down Jade, who was easily the most attractive, charming, determined and brave Chojin known.

And so maybe it was just history repeating, and maybe she was destined to devote herself to Mantaro through the most difficult of his challenges until he met the new generation version of Bibinda.


	2. The Final Round

This story will mostly be told from Rinko's perspective but will primarily be about Rinko, Mantaro and Kevin.

Chapter 2: The Final Round

"Kevin Mask is a monster."

The statement had been little more than a whisper and barely audible over the drone of the 124,500 fans packed into the Tokyo National Stadium for the final of the Chojin Olympics yet Rinko had heard every word as clearly as though they had been spoken directly to her in a quiet setting. In Rinko's opinion, Kevin Mask was a phenomenal wrestler and arguably the best of his generation: but as secretly filmed videos of his training sessions and uncut replays of the outcomes of his first, second and third round fights were played to the audience she could not help but agree that he was also a monster. He had killed his first and second round opponents and if Meat had not so heroically intervened, he would also have killed his third round opponent Ilioukhine.

She wondered what Kevin Mask had planned for Mantaro.

Mantaro was foolish, cowardly, lazy, greedy and usually thoughtless, but he had always managed to stand up and fight for his friends when the need had arisen. Although he had run away after Kevin's fight against Ilioukhine Rinko was confident that Mantaro would return to face Kevin that day and he would surely show that famous fighting spirit he possessed but rarely used. Even without Meat to guide him, Mantaro would rise to the challenge, find a way to overcome the indomitable iron knight and stand victorious.

And Rinko's conviction only became stronger when Mantaro finally made his entrance looking like both a prince and a champion. It was probably the first time Rinko had seen him make a serious entrance to a fight as he usually dressed in ludicrous outfits backed by absurd and irrelevant music. But as he approached the ring for his chance to become a Chojin Olympics Champion Mantaro finally looked strong, focussed, regal and intense. Rinko let out a small sigh and suddenly felt her friends' eyes burning into her. She glanced back and forth between them for an explanation but they merely glared back at her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Did you just say…" Keiko began.

"Mantaro looks good?" Tamaki finished.

"N-no!"

Rinko felt herself blush under the intense and sceptical stares of her two friends. She had been thinking that Mantaro looked really good but she had certainly not said as much. Or at least she could not remember voicing her thoughts. She was grateful then that her friends began cooing amongst themselves about how great Mantaro looked so that she could waft a hand at her face to help ease the burn in her cheeks of her own embarrassment.

But as she watched Mantaro leap over the top rope of the ring Rinko felt a rush in her chest and she knew that her feelings for him went beyond just friendship. She had first realised how much she liked him when she realised that she missed him during his battle against the No Respect trio. He had appeared in countless newspapers and magazines and she had found herself buying them on instinct and reading every one several times, to the point that she had done little else outside of attending school. When Mantaro had returned to Earth he had seemed a little more sensible somehow and Rinko found herself wanting to spend more time with him. Throughout the Chojin Olympics Mantaro had still displayed some of his immature and silly antics he was famous for, but only his attraction to Jacqueline had angered Rinko in the way all of his little quirks once had.

Looking up at Mantaro standing in the centre of the ring, his cape lifted slightly on the air around them, Rinko wondered if she was actually in love with him; although love seemed like such a powerful word to her and she had never considered applying it to her feelings for anyone other than Mari before.

Rinko's thoughts were suddenly broken into as the audience around her began gasping and yelling out in shock. Rinko quickly copied their actions as she sighted the cause of their horror: Kevin Mask was walking towards the ring looking thoroughly exhausted and wearing a battered old mask with a large gash across the forehead. Behind her she heard Kid explain that the cut, and indeed the mask itself, looked old and that he believed it to be an old mask Kevin had modified to look like his usual, flawless and gleaming blue iron mask. Kid's words were meaningless to Rinko who was more distracted by the aura emanating from Kevin as he approached the ring. With the old mask and being apparently physically worn out he looked awful; yet somehow he still seemed intimidating and confident to the point of arrogance.

Rinko turned back to Mantaro to judge his reaction to what he was witnessing. He was still standing tall, arms crossed, in the same stance that had seemed so regal and powerful only minutes earlier, and yet he seemed less in control somehow. El Nino let out a yelp of surprise and Rinko finally saw why Mantaro had lost his dignity. Under any other circumstances Rinko would have been thoroughly disgusted by the sight of Mantaro wetting himself, but Kevin Mask did look particularly frightening, his second Croe looked almost as intimidating and Kevin's track record in the Chojin Olympics had been nothing short of brutal, so she overlooked Mantaro's actions, instead concerning herself with how Mantaro would fare against an opponent as strong and focussed as Kevin Mask.

When the bell finally rang and the fight began Rinko was surprised to see that both Chojin were hesitant to take the first shot. The first few minutes of what had been a much-hyped confrontation were slow and awkward until Mantaro eventually began the assault with a series of kicks that eventually knocked Kevin to the mat. Though apparently Kevin was not as exhausted as he looked because in a flash he had sent Mantaro flying, leaving a small spray of blood in his wake. As he got to his feet it was apparent that Kevin was still breathless but as always Kid had an explanation for what Rinko could see happening inside the ring.

"Kevin Mask has been training hard and rid himself of all his excess energy," he explained. "This way he's calm and focussed. Even if Mantaro strikes first, Kevin can move faster."

"What?" Tamaki asked.

Rinko was as confused as her friends were but as she watched the action in front of them she quickly saw the point Kid had been trying to make. Every time Mantaro launched an attack on Kevin, Kevin was somehow able to avoid harm and counter-attack Mantaro. Mantaro's situation seemed quite bleak and hopeless but Rinko knew that his greatest strength was entering a challenge as the under-dog and somehow finding a method to better his opponent to take the win. Whilst she was sure that he was facing his toughest opponent yet in the ring, Rinko was also still reasonably confident that Mantaro would find the strength, courage and resourcefulness to defeat Kevin Mask.

After all, the alternative did not bear thinking about: Rinko was certain that if Mantaro was not victorious that day one way or another, this fight would be his last.

Every moment of the intense fight inside the ring seemed to last an eternity and yet the eventual last few minutes of the fight flew by. After witnessing the fight go in favour of and against both Chojins the battle came to an abrupt, almost anti-climatic finish. The instant between Kevin Mask standing victorious and the bell ringing to signify the end of the action was somehow stilled and silent and the clanging of the bell made Rinko start. Her head throbbed and her eyes blurred from a combination of tears and a sickening dizziness that overtook her body as she heard the announcement that Kevin Mask was the winner. The notion that she had perhaps imagined the last few seconds was killed as she watched the British fans celebrate the result.

"I-I don't believe it," Tamaki said.

"Poor Mantaro!" Keiko said.

"It just wasn't his time," Mari said. "Maybe at the next Chojin Olympics."

Rinko turned to Mari sharply wondering if she had misheard. Mari seemed quite accepting of Mantaro's loss and yet Rinko was distraught. As though sensing Rinko's dilemma Mari turned to her and smiled gently.

"Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be fine," she said. "And now that he's fought Kevin Mask he'll be prepared to face him again. Next time Mantaro will be the champion of the Chojin Olympics."

"Next time?" Rinko said.

In her mind, there was no next time. Mantaro was meant to have won. He was invincible. He was not the hardest worker but he always won. He always fought hard and he always won. It was impossible that he could have been defeated. It was impossible that he was lying crushed in the centre of the ring, lucky to still be alive after being manhandled by Kevin Mask.

But upon turning back to the ring, Rinko could see that Kevin was being awarded as the victor and medics were tending to Mantaro's limp form. As hard as it was for her to believe, Mantaro had just been defeated in battle and was lying broken, bloodied, battered and unconscious in the middle of the ring. And apart from being bloody, a little sweatier and baring a new gouge out of his mask, Kevin Mask looked no worse than he had when he had entered the stadium before the start of the fight.

Kevin Mask really was a monster.


	3. Aftershock

Chapter 3: Aftershock

Rinko stepped into the kitchen, stopping short as she sighted Mari by the fridge. She had expected Mari to be gone and was surprised and a little disappointed to find her still in the house.

"Good morning," Mari said to her.

"Hi," Rinko replied, slowly moving across the room.

"I was just preparing some lunches," Mari said. "Then I'm going back to see Mantaro again. Are you coming with me today?"

"Um… No, I don't think I will," Rinko replied.

Rinko tugged at her hair and kept her back turned to Mari in the hope that she would not see her awkwardness.

"That's a shame," Mari said. "You know Mantaro has been asking for you."

"Oh?"

Rinko chewed at a fingernail as her eyes wandered to the clock on the wall ahead of her. It was late morning and already eight days had passed since Mantaro's defeat at the final found of the Chojin Olympics. She had not seen him since the day of the fight and she was not sure that she was ready to see him yet. A part of her was still in denial that he had actually lost the fight and when she did try to fully face the fact that he had not been victorious she found herself resenting him, which ultimately made her feel selfish and hollow. She was sure that Mantaro felt awful losing for the first time since his arrival on Earth but she could not escape the feeling that he had really let her down somehow.

"Well in case you change your mind, I'm going to leave some money on the table here," Mari said. "That's enough for a bus fare to the hospital and back. Mantaro would really like to see you Rinko, you should try to visit him, even if you only go for a short while, he would really appreciate it."

Rinko nodded. She heard Mari gather up her things to leave but Rinko did not turn around until she heard Mari leave through the front door. She then turned to the pile of coins winking at her from the table. She knew that she ought to of course take the money and go to see Mantaro; but when she tried to make herself move towards the table, her feet suddenly became glued to the floor, holding her in place.

It was not even as if she could escape the facts: Beverly Park was almost like a graveyard without Mantaro's presence, in both the silence and sense of loss that clung to the sand around the odd-shaped hut he lived in there. Every television channel, every newspaper and every magazine was filled with images of Mantaro's bloody defeat, primarily including a picture of his ashen face, mouth agape, lying prostrate on the mat behind the tall form of Kevin Mask, who was holding aloft his championship, his entire body (thanks to his armour, the lighting and the blood) seeming black. The image was haunting Rinko's nightmares and turning restless nights into unbearable sleep-deprived days.

She knew that something had to change and she knew that it would have to start with her. But even as she reached for the money Mari had left her Rinko still could not bring herself to face Mantaro just yet.

Instead she took herself to another room and sat down in front of a television, reluctantly switching it on in the hope of finding something more pleasant than yet another replay of the closing moments of the Chojin Olympics. The first image that appeared was of one of her favourite boy bands and Rinko realised that by some miracle the television was set to a music channel. She sat back and closed her eyes to enjoy the music, trying her best to make herself comfortable and to relax. But sometimes there was no rest for the weary; Rinko soon found herself staring at the television, one hand gripping at a nearby cushion as the other pushed some buttons on the remote, changing the channel to a major news channel.

Not surprisingly the channel was showing the scene Rinko had been trying to avoid reliving for the last eight days. But this time the words spoken over the video playing were not quite those Rinko had expected to hear.

"Officials suspect it happened sometime between mid-night and four in the morning," the reporter said. "No staff or patients witnessed Mantaro Kinniku leave the hospital, but several eye witnesses have provided police with unfortunately vastly different pieces of information regarding sightings of Mantaro travelling through Tokyo. He is believed to have stowed away aboard a freight train northbound, and at this time, it is unclear how much and exactly what he stole."

Rinko shot forwards on the couch in shock. Mantaro had stolen something? But what? And from who? She waited desperately for the report to answer her questions but the reporter ended the story and began another on something entirely irrelevant. Rinko hurriedly grabbed up the remote and switched to another news channel. It showed a swarm of photographers clambering around a parking lot as a tall figure passed through them. Rinko quickly realised that the man in question was Kevin Mask and so she switched to another news channel.

"We can confirm at this point that Mantaro Kinniku has left Tokyo."

Rinko sat back again to watch as Ikeman spoke from a podium at an apparent impromptu press conference.

"We don't know where he went or why, he was in hospital and he left there during the night last night both unofficially and without medical approval. Kevin Mask has also left Tokyo and although he did not give reason for his departure, we must assume he is in pursuit of Mantaro."

Rinko gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth in shock.

"After leaving the hospital, we believe that Mantaro went directly to the hotel Kevin Mask was staying in and once there, he stole Kevin Mask's Olympic Championship belt and trophy. At this point we don't know any more on the matter but we will inform the public as soon as any more information comes to light."

Rinko watched, dumbfounded, as Ikeman left the podium. The reporters in attendance screamed questions at him but he dismissed them with a wave of his hand. The screen then switched to the same footage Rinko had seen on another channel of Kevin moving across a parking lot. This time she watched the video to completion, finding that it showed Kevin mounting a motorbike and speeding off.

After Mantaro, she thought to herself.

"Oh Mantaro, what have you done?" she whispered.

In her opinion, Mantaro had been lucky to escape his fight against Kevin with his life. But she was confident that if he really had stolen the trophy and belt from Kevin Mask, Kevin would hunt Mantaro down and finish him off for good. She had not heard anything on any of the news reports about any police looking for Mantaro or anyone trying to do anything to prevent the two from clashing out with the semi-protective environment of a wrestling ring where rules would at least stop the fight from turning into something unimaginably dark and sinister. Mantaro was good at running away but he was no good at hiding and Rinko knew that a man as resourceful and determined as Kevin would quickly uncover Mantaro's whereabouts.

Unless somebody did something to stop him.

Rinko was unsure if Mantaro's friends would volunteer to hunt down and restrain Kevin Mask, and if they were willing to do such a thing for their friend then surely they ought to have already left the city? Stopping an angry Kevin would probably be impossible anyway, since not even Mantaro Kinniku had managed to stop him.

So perhaps, Rinko decided, the best thing was not to try to stop Kevin but to try to reach Mantaro. If somebody could reach him wherever he had gone and convince him to surrender what he had taken from Kevin, perhaps all would not be lost.

Rinko moved to the nearest window that by chance overlooked Beverly Park. Outside she could see Mari talking frantically with Meat and Suguru; apparently she had not made it as far as the hospital before finding out about Mantaro's latest exploit. Rinko quietly opened the window a little to let their voices into the room. After listening for a few moments, she quickly determined that Kid, Gazelleman and Sieuchin had already left to look for Mantaro and Meat and Suguru were about to do the same. They were asking Mari to stay behind and watch the park in case Mantaro returned there and she appeared to be gladly agreeing.

Rinko quietly closed the window and ran up to her bedroom. She grabbed up her schoolbag and began packing a few items into it, listening carefully for Mari returning. If Mari was staying, she did not need to stay as well. And Rinko could not just sit around and wait to find out what would become of Mantaro. She had to get out and find him, ideally before Kevin Mask did. She felt partly responsible for his irrational actions, as she had not visited him when he had asked for her, and she felt certain that this was the best way to fight her guilt.

Rinko closed her bag and took one last look around her room before hurriedly climbing out the window and lowering herself to the ground with a rope she liked to keep by her window for such emergencies. She peeked around the corner of the wall, seeing that Mari was still talking with Meat and Suguru, suitably distracted. She quickly turned her back on them and jogged off without a single backward glance.

"Hold on Mantaro," she whispered. "I'm coming!"


	4. Broken

Chapter 4: Broken

Mantaro dropped his bag to the ground and pulled around his Lantern of the Soul clasping it in both hands and focussing his energy onto it. Before his fight against Kevin Mask, before Kevin had stolen the lantern from him and somehow lit it himself, Mantaro had found it quite easy to make the flames inside the lantern blaze to life in a swirling inferno of energy.

But since his defeat the lantern had been completely unresponsive.

Mantaro gripped tighter until his knuckles turned white and threatened to burst through his skin, but still nothing. The lantern remained as dull and lifeless as it had been when he had first laid hands on it before his trials against Fork the Giant, Hanzo and Bone Cold. It was almost as though even the Lantern of the Soul had given up on him. It was pretty obvious that his father, his friends and even Rinko were all disappointed in him.

"Damn it!" he yelled flinging the redundant lantern at a nearby tree.

As the lantern smacked into the tree it made a dull ringing sound followed shortly by a small cracking sound. Mantaro stiffened his anger subsiding as a cold panic flooded his being. Had he just broken the Lantern of the Soul? He slowly lowered his eyes to where the lantern had landed on the grass. In the encroaching darkness of nightfall it was difficult for him to see clearly if the lantern had sustained any damage, but the small voice in his head that had been taunting him relentlessly since seeing Kevin Mask stand on the ring-ropes with the championship belt around his waist began to talk to him again, admonishing him for ruining something else precious to his family.

"I messed up," he said aloud. "I broke it. I broke the lantern and I broke the Kinniku Legacy. I'm the first Kinniku to lose at the Chojin Olympics."

Mantaro's breath quivered in his throat as his eyes began to blur with tears. Saying the facts out loud only made them all the harder to fathom. His mind began to replay his fight against Kevin in the same way it had been doing since the day after the fight. His entire being zoned out of reality as his own memories overtook his senses, his brain forcing him to relieve every horrid moment of what was easily the most difficult, painful and upsetting thing ever to have happened to him. The continued look of determination on Kevin's face was the hardest part of the memory. No matter how hard, how sudden or how well Mantaro had attacked Kevin, still the masked Brit had stood right back up and looked even stronger than before. Kevin had arrived at the ring barely able to stand, covered in scars and in a battered old mask, looking the complete opposite of Mantaro, who had acquired himself a brand new outfit and made his entrance in his father's battle gear looking noble and strong.

Kevin had looked a mess but still he had won. Mantaro had always spent so much time and effort perfecting his appearance and entrances but suddenly that all seemed childish and pointless when a Chojin could turn up for a fight looking dreadful and still pull off a phenomenal win.

He had made it all look so easy. During his stay in hospital Mantaro had been unable to escape replays of his fight against Kevin or new reports of Kevin waving at adoring fans with his championship belt over one shoulder and his trophy held aloft in the other hand. It was unbearable and yet nobody else around him seemed to think it wrong that he be made to watch it over and over again. Over and over again he saw the moment that Kevin bent over backwards and halted his Muscle Millennium in mid-air, a moment that had seemed to happen in slow motion, a moment that had made Mantaro's heart stop as he became overwhelmed by shock and a feeling of utter hopelessness. The Muscle Millennium was meant to be unstoppable but Kevin Mask had made it look like a textbook move that could easily be overcome with a textbook counter. Over and over again Mantaro had been forced to watch as Kevin kicked him to the ground and leapt onto his back locking the OLAP into place. Over and over again Mantaro had watched as his body slowly sagged under the weight and pressure from Kevin's hold. Over and over again he had seen the Niku mark appear on his forehead as he attempted to fight back for the sake of his cheering friends and fans. Over and over again he had seen Kevin glow a brilliant golden and lean further back, tearing Mantaro's shoulders from their sockets and breaking a series of bones from his fingers up to his shoulders. Over and over again Mantaro had seen his face contort in pain, disbelief and despondency as he sank to the mat with his arms twisted and discoloured, his brand new outfit ripped and ruined. Over and over again he had watched as Kevin then mercilessly pulled him to his feet and wound his already painful arms around themselves and spun him up into the air, setting him up for the Big Ben Edge.

But watching himself get demolished at the hands of Kevin Mask seemed insignificant when compared to what followed. After sustaining the Big Ben Edge Mantaro had tried to stand, tried to walk, tried to fight on – after all, he was a Kinniku, it was his destiny to become the champion of the Chojin Olympics – but nobody had been able to look at him. The Nosonman, Jacqueline Muscle, Terry the Kid and even Rinko had all turned their heads when he looked at them. The only one who had been able to look him in the eye the moment before he passed out in his ultimate moment of weakness had been Kevin Mask.

And for that, Mantaro despised him.

He resented the others for turning on him when he had been unable to win for them: clearly they only cared about him when he was successful. But Kevin had looked him in the eye in a cold and calm way that told him had he tried to fight on Kevin would have obliterated him. Kevin was so confident that he out-classed Mantaro, he did not even care that Mantaro was still standing after suffering the OLAP followed by the Big Ben Edge.

"Bastard!" Mantaro blurted out, kicking at the tree in front of him.

Seeing a small chunk of bark and woodchip crack off the surface of the tree where he had kicked it Mantaro suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of energy and a burning desire to fight. He kicked at the tree repeatedly with both feet delighting as the tree shook and groaned and broke apart from his attacks. Forgetting his situation in his rage Mantaro began punching at the tree the adrenaline of his anger blinding him to the pain he was suffering until he heard a deep clunking sound emanate from his left shoulder and he suddenly found himself lying facedown on the grass, crippled and breaking out in a cold sweat from the agony.

It was just like his fight against Kevin. He had gone into that with the wrong attitude too. He had been full of energy then and he had been punching and kicking aimlessly, spurred on by rage and emotion, so blinded by his own foolishness he had not noticed that Kevin was calm, focussed and completely in control.

Mantaro turned his head a little to see the Lantern of the Soul lying by his side. Amazingly it was unharmed from his earlier tantrum. The crack, he concluded, must have been the bark of the tree. The glass surface of the lantern was slightly reflective and Mantaro could see his own face and shoulder. He looked ridiculous. He could see the collar around his neck and the start of the extensive support bandage at his shoulder that ran the length of his arm. He knew his other arm looked exactly the same and that his clothes were filthy and tattered only adding to his pitiful appearance. Meat had brought him a replacement mask since his own mask had been badly damaged during his fight against Kevin, but Mantaro had chosen to keep his old mask. He could see the large hole over his left cheek still glaringly obvious and the scratched skin underneath. As he watched his reflection Mantaro felt his own hand reach up to his face, his eyes staring back at him in a dull and expressionless manner as he gripped his fingers into the top of the hole, ripping upwards and outwards until he had removed another chunk from his mask, exposing a large part of his scalp. A mass of dark brown hair fell loose covering his scratched skin but otherwise making him look really untidy.

Just like Kevin Mask had for their fight.

And that was just how Mantaro liked it.


	5. Bad Habit

I feel bad that the last chapter was a bit short, so here's another one.

Chapter 5: Bad Habit

Rinko fell against a tree by the roadside and groaned as her feet throbbed beneath her. She had considered the shoes she wore to be suitable for chasing after Mantaro in but she had been walking for so long she had apparently pushed them to their limits. She lowered her bag to the ground and removed her shoes before sitting down by the base of the tree and resting her back against the trunk.

Despite the news reporting that Mantaro had snuck onto a train Rinko believed that he had simply fled on foot and probably not gone far beyond the limits of the city. Escaping on foot where he could keep himself hidden seemed more like Mantaro's mentality to her.

But Rinko was beginning to wish that she had not been quite so reckless before she left home. She had no food or water and insufficient money to get herself anything beyond a small snack. She had no idea where she would sleep that night and in her increasing hunger, thirst, guilt and exhaustion she was becoming tearful. Why had she not just gone to see Mantaro when he was in hospital? Rinko was certain that it was the single most selfish thing she had ever done in her life. She knew that Mantaro cared about her – his reaction to her running with Jade in the Chojin Olympics Preliminaries had been proof enough of that – and still she had stayed away from him because of her own conflicting emotions regarding his loss.

Rinko drew in a shuddering breath and hugged her arms around herself as she began to feel the chill of nightfall soaking through her clothing. She really had not planned ahead at all, but she had to wonder if Mantaro had planned his departure any better than she had hers. A celebrity who sought to flee from a hospital, cross a city, break into a hotel room, steal two famous and valuable items from another celebrity and then escape the city would surely have planned their actions carefully. But Rinko doubted Mantaro had given his actions any forethought whatsoever. Every time she tried to envisage what his thought process might have been she ultimately came to the conclusion that Mantaro had probably just seen a picture of Kevin Mask with the trophy and championship belt in a newspaper or magazine and lost his temper. It had probably just been luck that he had managed to escape the hospital unnoticed and coincidence that nobody had been about to see him sneak into Kevin's room and steal from him.

Mantaro had done a lot of stupid things in the time she had known him, but Rinko had never expected him to do something as ludicrous as this. Did he think that by taking the championship belt and trophy he would somehow be entitled to keep them? That just taking them made him the champion? Clearly he had not yet come to terms with his loss. If only he had spoken to someone about how he felt perhaps someone could have talked him out of doing something so irrational.

A tear slipped from Rinko's eye as she realised that she was the one he would have confided in. She could have been the one to save him from himself. She should have been the one to save him from himself. But she had allowed her own shock, confusion and disappointment to hold her back.

Disappointment.

Another tear left Rinko's other eye and she sniffed sharply. She was disappointed and there was no point in denying it. She was disappointed in Mantaro for losing. He was supposed to be invincible and he had never looked stronger or more focussed than he had on his way to the ring the day of the final round of the Chojin Olympics; but still he had lost.

Actually, Rinko was angry with Mantaro. She felt as though he had lied to her. When he had saved her from The Rigani he had told her not to underestimate him and from that moment onwards, she never had. She had followed his career faithfully ever since then, and he had never let her down. He had always been victorious against all odds. He had defeated good and evil Chojin alike, how had Kevin Mask been able to stop him? Nobody was meant to ever be able to stop Mantaro. He was the unlikely hero who always won.

Rinko moaned loudly as her tears, the cold, her hunger, thirst and want for a warm bed began to get the better of her. She grabbed her bag, ripping it open and poured it out onto the ground between her feet. The contents really offered nothing of any substance but she did find two objects that made her relax a little. It had been a long time since she had smoked a cigarette but the memory of how calming the habit had been suddenly made her cravings rise back to the surface. Without another thought Rinko grabbed up the half-empty packet of cigarettes, eagerly pulling out a single cigarette and sniffing along the length of it before lodging it between her teeth and grabbing up her lighter. Even just the smell of the nicotine and the sensation of the roll of paper between her lips made her feel more at ease.

With a small smile that made the end of her cigarette tilt upwards Rinko began flicking at her lighter. Her smile began to fade when the lighter did little more than spark in her fingers. She shook it a little and tried again but still got no response. Tears began to well up in her eyes again and she began to tremble with frustration. She violently shook the lighter about and tried again but again it clicked and sparked and refused to light. As tears slid down her cheeks Rinko held the lighter up against a streetlight her face twisting in despair as she saw that it was completely empty.

She cursed and threw the lighter onto the road, watching as a car drove past, one wheel rolling over the lighter and shattering it with ease. Just like how Kevin had destroyed Mantaro: totally and with the minimum of effort.

Rinko clawed her belongings back into her bag and stood up. She took the cigarette from her mouth and tucked it behind one ear before starting in the direction of the roadside bar a little way ahead of where she had stopped. She was too young to get served at a bar but she was optimistic that she could sweet-talk the bartender into selling her a lighter or at least she could manage to acquire a packet of complimentary matches. She smoothed her hands over her head to straighten her hair and stood tall with her head held high before walking confidently into the bar.

Inside the bar it was dark and greasy, the air thick with smoke. Rinko tried to look confident as she wound her way around the tables towards the bar itself. She quickly got the bartender's eye and smiled at him as she toyed with a strand of her hair coyly.

"Hi," he said, walking over to stand in front of her.

"Hi," she replied. "I was just wondering if I could have a lighter?"

"What do I look like to you?"

Rinko faltered at his unexpected response.

"Do I look stupid to you?"

Rinko felt her face grow hot as the rest of her body grew cold.

"Do I look like an idiot to you? Is that what you think? Do you think I'm an idiot?"

Rinko shook her head wordlessly but the bartender merely snorted in response.

"Get out of here kid," he warned, pointing at the door. "Or I'll have you taken out of here. We don't serve little girls in here."

"I just wanted a lighter!" Rinko pleaded.

"Get out of here, little girl!"

Rinko screamed as he suddenly lunged forwards bringing his face close to hers. She staggered back a few steps from the bar her eyes still locked onto the bartender. He began to laugh and Rinko began to cry again. She spun on her heels and ran for the door almost glad to feel the cold night air on her skin again as she fled the bar.

Rinko ran until she tripped on a rock by the roadside and fell to her knees. She slowly sat up trying to ignore the wet grass soaking through her clothes as she sprawled her legs out in front of herself. She plucked her cigarette out from behind her ear and bit onto it again, closing her eyes and sighing as yet more tears burned forth from her eyes. She roughly raked her fingers through her hair and closed her lips around the cigarette, sucking pointlessly on it. She cursed again, her words muffled against her cigarette, opening her eyes and swiping the tears from her face with the sleeve of her sweater. Her situation was so pathetic she almost wanted to laugh at herself and she began to feel that she might just become hysterical; but a rasping sound at her side made her stop short.

Rinko stiffened as a glowing match appeared in front of her face. She crossed her eyes to focus on the small flame only briefly wondering where it had come from before her instincts took over and she leaned towards it, pushing the tip of her cigarette into the flame and watching it glow to life. The match whipped back and disappeared from her sight but Rinko did not care as her cigarette was lit. She gladly drew deeply on it, holding her breath to contain the warmth of the smoke for a blissful few seconds before slowly sighing it out again. She cursed again, pulling the cigarette from her mouth and flicking off the excess ash before biting down onto it and sucking in another lungful of smoke.

"It's a very bad habit, I've never really understood it myself."

Rinko turned her head sharply, immediately coughing and choking on the smoke in her body as she sighted the person suddenly sat next to her, facing her side and brandishing a burnt-out match between his fingers.

"K-Kevin Mask?" she blurted out.


	6. What You Deserve

I hope this chapter will help convey Mantaro's muddled logic at this time.

Chapter 6: What You Deserve

Mantaro walked quietly along the roadside towards the rising sun. He was wearing a long overcoat, he had a backpack mounted on his back and beneath the coat he had the Chojin Olympics championship belt around his waist. He had left the coat open so that he could occasionally look down at the glittering metallic badge on the front of the belt, though he was careful not to study it too closely since it was embossed with Kevin Mask's name after all. He had asked Meat why that was and Meat had told him that two badges would have been created, one reading Kevin Mask and another reading Mantaro Kinniku in preparation for either outcome and facilitate an immediate crowning ceremony at the end of the final round of the Chojin Olympics. That meant that somewhere there existed a replacement badge for the belt with his name on it. Once Mantaro had that badge the belt would truly be his.

Protruding from his backpack was the Chojin Olympics championship trophy, which was surprisingly heavy. In one hand the Lantern of the Soul dangled from his fingers and in the other his fist was clenched around the spike of Robin Mask's converted mask that Kevin had worn for their bout. Mantaro felt that he could not truly be the Chojin Olympics Champion without both the belt and the trophy, and he had taken the mask simply because Kevin had made such a big deal about it and how much it meant to him. It seemed to Mantaro that the stupid, battered old mask meant as much to Kevin as winning the Chojin Olympics meant to him, so really losing the mask was just what Kevin deserved.

Mantaro had not yet decided where he was going or what he would do when he got there but he did feel the need to keep moving and to stay away from other people. Kevin Mask was a loner and it had worked quite well for him and so Mantaro reasoned that perhaps he ought to give the same strategy a try. He was quite pleased with the coat he wore: he had found it in a dumpster out the back of a theatre, where it had presumably once been used as a costume in a play, and although it was the wrong colour it was exactly the same shape and style as Kevin's long overcoat. It was a little ragged at the hem and cuffs from excessive wear but it was also a little too big for him anyway so he decided that he would take it to a tailor somewhere along his journey to have it adjusted to hide the worn parts and to better fit him. Maybe he would also have it dyed.

As he walked on and the road brightened around him Mantaro began thinking about the mask he had taken from Kevin's room. His father had damaged it many years ago and then Mantaro himself had damaged it further. But it had miraculously repaired itself after Kevin defeated the Kinniku prince. Mantaro was still a little confused as to why that was. In his opinion, nothing had been repaired during or after his fight against Kevin Mask. Plenty of things had been broken – his arms, his shoulders, his fingers, his collarbone, his winning streak, his spirit – but nothing had been repaired. He wondered if there was somehow a way that he could reinstate the damage. That seemed fair. He had his scars to show for their bout Kevin ought to have at least one significant one too.

Kevin had gone too far and for that Mantaro would never forgive him. If Jacqueline had not run into the ring and thrown herself over him, would Kevin have attempted to take his life as he had done to Ilioukhine? The OLAP and the Big Ben Edge were both lethal enough moves on their own, using them in quick succession against an already broken and battered opponent was just overkill. But was that really the end? Kevin had seemed a little shocked to see Jacqueline embrace Mantaro and he was sure that her presence had saved him from certain death at Kevin's hands. Had she not stepped in when she did Kevin would be sporting a miniature image of Mantaro on the spider-web tattoo on his back already; of that much Mantaro was certain.

Not that Mantaro actually believed that Kevin cared about Jacqueline at all. He had tried to throw two handfuls of blood at her during their fight and he had been cold towards her since the start of the Chojin Olympics. He had no respect for anyone and probably enjoyed making other people look stupid. He had made Mantaro look stupid when Mantaro had invited him to join the Justice Federation and he had refused the offer in front of all of Mantaro's friends, a stadium full of fans and the cameras that caught the event and broadcast it repeatedly on various television channels. Apparently Kevin really hated people and liked making them look stupid and really hurting them, physically, mentally and emotionally. Obviously that was why he had no friends or even a girlfriend: he had no people skills and no likeable qualities or even the most basic of good manners.

But he had almost had a friend during the Chojin Olympics, because Warsman, wearing a strange disguise and calling himself "Croe", had coached him. Mantaro smirked a little in amusement: Croe was a girl's name! That really was strange. And Kevin had been so upset when Mantaro had kicked a new gash into his father's precious mask. Kevin who claimed to hate his father and to have disowned him was suddenly showing some emotion because daddy's old mask was broken.

Mantaro lifted up his hand to suspend the old mask in the air directly in front of his face. He grinned as the hollow mask stared back at him. It had been like a companion to him and the one thing that helped him find his smile when tears threatened and the pain of his own disappointment and self-loathing made his chest ache. He decided that he would keep the mask forever more, perhaps in a glass display cabinet with an appropriately sarcastic plaque attached.

Mantaro opened his fingers and allowed himself to laugh a little as the mask clanged loudly against the hard ground at his feet, the noise echoing through the trees around him and sending a wave of indignant birds into the air. He swung back one foot and kicked forwards hard, striking the mask and sending it bouncing along the road in front of him. He watched it roll over and over, smiling to himself every time it faced him, looking almost saddened at his mistreatment of it.

"Meat always said soccer was good training," he said aloud with a shrug.

He tugged at his backpack to secure it on his shoulders before running after the mask and kicking it hard again, letting out a whoop of joy that caused another rustle of discontented wildlife throughout the trees. Maybe he would give the mask back to Kevin one day. But not before he had finished disrespecting, abusing and vandalising it by every means he could possibly think of.

"Up yours, Kevin!" he shouted, kicking the mask into the middle of the road as a large truck loomed over a curve in the road ahead.

Mantaro watched smugly on as the truck effortlessly sped over the mask, three of the enormous wheels rolling right over the old iron helmet. He was a little disappointed to see that the tenacious old artefact was not flattened by the attack but as he rolled it over with a small tap of his boot he could see that it had been bent out of shape and looked even more pitiful than before.

"Don't look at me like that, Kevin," he said to the empty eyehole looking up at him. "I'm just giving you exactly what you deserve."

Mantaro kicked the mask down the centre of the road and turned towards the warmth of the sun that was easing up the sky, casting a long, misshapen shadow behind the old mask as it clattered and banged its way along the road. The scene ahead of him was quite pleasant and peaceful and the noise he was creating was not befitting of the ambient atmosphere; but Mantaro did not really care. He did not really care about much at all, but he did care about making sure that Kevin Mask got exactly what he deserved.


	7. Monster

Chapter 7: Monster

Rinko squealed as her cigarette sizzled through the thin material covering her thigh and began burning the skin underneath. In her panic she swept a hand at her leg and sent the lit cigarette rolling away across the damp grass where it both extinguished and stopped by Kevin's right foot as though to further the insult. She whimpered out a small noise of saddened defeat before slowly lifting her eyes from the object of her desire to Kevin himself, quietly taking in every detail of his appearance before looking into his intense yellow eyes, that seemed almost fluorescent against the dark of night. He looked a little unkempt – though nowhere near as bad as he had for some of his fights during the Chojin Olympics – it was obvious that he had been travelling without sufficient rest since Mantaro's disappearance.

"Let's not waste any more time here," he said bluntly.

Rinko yelped again as a small box of matches suddenly bounced off of her head. She pouted indignantly at Kevin for throwing them at her so carelessly but his expression (what little she could actually see of it) remained unchanged.

"You're following Mantaro," he continued. "Tell me where he is."

Rinko made a small squeaking sound before slapping a hand over her mouth. Apparently she had lost her voice as she had intended to tell him exactly what she thought of his last request – if it could even be called that, since it seemed more like a demand to her, one which his tone was almost daring her not to defy.

"Tell me now," Kevin said when she did not answer him.

"I don't know," Rinko eventually managed, inwardly cursing herself for the pathetic and childish sound of her own voice after his smooth and unwavering timbre.

"I think you do," Kevin immediately replied.

"No I don't!" Rinko insisted, angered to hear that her voice sounded even more squeaky and immature with every word she uttered.

"Don't waste my time," Kevin said flatly. "I don't know what you think, but I won't pay you for this information. Just tell me where he is."

"I don't know where he is!" Rinko insisted, her voice steadying a little. "And besides, even if I did know where he was, I wouldn't accept a bribe for the information!"

Kevin muttered something about girls who loved money but before Rinko could defend herself she suddenly found herself falling over as he grabbed her school-bag and pulled it from her, off-setting her balance and sending her crashing into the grass face-first. She hurriedly pushed herself back up onto her knees, gasping in alarm and indignation as Kevin shamelessly ripped her bag in two, tilting his head curiously as he studied the fallen contents around his feet.

"What did you do that for?" Rinko demanded, smacking her fists against her knees.

Kevin's eyes flicked to hers and she paled, instantly regretting her accusation and actions.

"Obviously you know where you're going," he said plainly. "You've come completely unprepared, as if you expect to catch up with Mantaro within a day. And I see that you have very little cash on you."

"Hey!" Rinko cried as Kevin unzipped her purse and shook out the contents.

"So where is he?" Kevin asked, tossing the emptied purse at Rinko.

"I already told you: I don't know where Mantaro is!"

"If you won't tell me where he is you leave me with no other choice."

Rinko stiffened as her mind began replaying Kevin annihilating each of his opponents from the Chojin Olympics one by one.

"I will follow you," he finished.

Rinko sighed in relief at his words as they confirmed that he was not about to pulverise her. But a moment later she realised exactly what his words did mean: he intended to follow her wherever she went from that moment onwards. She would never reach Mantaro to warn him about Kevin's approach and she would not get the opportunity to talk some sense into him if Kevin Mask himself was just two steps behind her all the way.

"You can't do that," Rinko said in what she hoped was a stern tone.

She began stuffing her belongings back into the largest half of her bag in the vain hope that she could somehow still use it as it was.

"I think I can actually," Kevin muttered, his voice barely audible to Rinko's ears.

"If you really are a gentleman, you won't upset a girl!" Rinko argued, punching at her bag to force the contents into the smaller space she was left with. "If you really were a gentleman, you wouldn't have just ripped my bag open! That was really mean of you!"

"My heart bleeds."

Rinko gasped, stopping her actions and staring at Kevin with her mouth and eyes open wide.

"You really are a monster!" she hissed. "You… You… Monster!"

Rinko hurriedly stuffed her money back into her purse and grabbed her bag under one arm, standing abruptly. She was relieved to see that Kevin did not immediately copy her actions, instead remaining where he was sat on the grass, his legs crossed in front of himself.

"You're a monster!" she cursed, waving a fist at him. "A horrible, mean, dirty monster!"

Feeling satisfied that she had put him in his place Rinko spun on her heels and started to take her leave, only to stop again after just two steps as the remains of her bag slipped at her side and most of the contents fell to the ground again.

"Damn it!" she screamed in frustration.

Fighting back tears as she did not wish to look weak in front of the monster Kevin Mask Rinko dropped to her knees and began the process of ramming her belongings into her bag again. She became so preoccupied with her task she failed to notice Kevin Mask stand up at her side and only when one of his booted feet stepped onto something with a loud crack did she halt her actions and turn her attention to him. She looked up at his dark features looming over her before looking at his foot, her eyes doubling in size as she spotted something white protruding from one side of his boot.

"Oh no!" she wailed, dropping back to sit on her heels.

Kevin grunted out a noise of confusion, slowly lifting his foot to reveal the full extent of the damage he had caused: underneath his foot, against the large imprint his weight had left in the grass, was the shattered remains of Rinko's compact.

"That was a gift!" she said reaching out her hands towards the shards of white plastic and mirror.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you…" Kevin muttered.

Rinko ignored his ridiculous remark and scooped up the remains of her treasured item, lifting them to her face to study them more closely. The damage was extensive and complete: Kevin had crushed her most treasured material possession just like how he had crushed poor Mantaro's spirit.

"You're a monster!" Rinko shouted at him. "I hate you! You're a monster! And I hate you! Because you're a monster!"

She started to stand, her hands closing on instinct and her senses taking a little too long to register the sensation of the broken glass biting into her skin. She gasped out in alarm, hurriedly opening out her hands and allowing everything she held to drop to the ground. As she looked down at the bloody line down the inside of her left thumb she saw it blur as tears welled in her eyes despite her better wishes.

"I did warn you," Kevin said with a shrug.

"That was your fault, you monster!" Rinko yelled at him.

"Don't be stupid," he flatly replied.

Rinko screamed louder and longer than she had intended to as she suddenly felt Kevin's hand gripped around her wrist.

"Let go of me!" she argued, writhing about in what she thought was her attempt to free her hand but somehow seemed to only result in every part of her body except the arm Kevin held thrashing about.

She hesitated, looking up into Kevin's intense eyes as she tried to figure out what his intentions were. He had a hold of her wrist a short way below her injury, but his eyes were fixed on hers and he was doing nothing more than hold her hand up at his side.

"Let go of me!" she tried again, wriggling about until she heard her neck crack from the strain. "You're hurting me!"

"You're hurting yourself," Kevin pointed out.

"Then let go of me!"

Rinko put a foot on Kevin's knee to give herself some leverage as she tried to wrestle her arm from his grasp, but he still he did not so much as flinch as he continued to hold her in exactly the same position.

"You're a monster!" she sobbed.

She hung her head as tears slid down her cheeks and a hiccup of misery left her throat.

"You should keep this elevated to stem the bleeding," Kevin said, his tone as steady and disinterested as ever.

"What?" Rinko whimpered, peeking at him through her hair.

"Clearly you're a silly little girl who can't be trusted on her own," he added.

"You monster!" Rinko growled, pulling her foot from his knee and swinging it at his groin.

Kevin leaned back a little to take himself out of her range but in doing so he also released his hold of her. Rinko paused, looking down at her money and belongings and then back at Kevin's eyes, which were still staring at her a little too intently for her own liking. Realising that she had to make a choice between her possessions and her freedom and that she did not have long to come to a decision Rinko turned her back on Kevin and ran.

She ran fast and hard, twice checking over her shoulder as she went, relieved to find that both times she looked, Kevin was still standing in exactly the same position she had left him in, with her torn bag and its contents scattered at his feet. She was worried about how she would manage without food or money but she was so overcome with relief to be free of Kevin Mask she was able to suppress the concern and focus her energy on running as far away from him as she possibly could.

After all, he was a monster.


	8. Deal with the Devil

Chapter 8: Deal with the Devil

Rinko moaned loudly, the sound of her own voice awakening her from troubled dreams about Mantaro suffering without proper medical care and without his friends around him. She blinked repeatedly as her surroundings failed to register any logic in her still drowsy mind. She appeared to be in a dark blue tent of some sorts with a short and oddly shaped sheet lying on top of her. She started to push back the material covering her body but stopped short as she spotted her left hand. She stared at it in a state of shock as the events of the previous night began to replay in her mind. She had met Kevin Mask and he had threatened to follow her until she took him to Mantaro. She had escaped him but at the cost of losing all of her belongings and being forced to take refuge beneath a large tree for the night. After running for a long time to escape Kevin she had fallen asleep very quickly; but she certainly had no memory of bandaging the bloody gash on her hand that she had acquired trying to salvage her compact that Kevin had stepped on.

It was a very poor attempt at first-aid: it looked as though the material used had been torn from an item of clothing and it had been wound around her hand and wrist a little too tightly to be comfortable. It looked like something Rinko would have done herself in a fit of emotion, but as neither the material nor the action were familiar to her she was left feeling distinctly confused.

She slowly sat up, ducking her head a little as it came dangerously closing to colliding with the trio of sticks rammed into the ground around her head and shoulders that acted as a support to the tent she found herself under. Whilst she could imagine herself ripping some fabric from her own clothing and doing a terrible job of using it to dress her wound, Rinko knew that she was not nearly resourceful enough to have built herself a tent using twigs and something waterproof. Looking beyond her feet she could see that it had rained extensively during the night, but thanks to her makeshift tent she had managed to stay dry.

She slowly looked down at the crumpled material in her lap, seeing a ragged line of torn fabric. Whatever it was she had used as a blanket she had also torn a section from to make her bandage, she concluded. She plucked up the material between her hands and lifted it up in front of herself, her blood running cold as she finally realised just what had kept her warm as she slept.

"Awake at last?"

Rinko dropped the T-shirt to her lap again, staring out of the open end of her miniature tent to see Kevin Mask sat against a tree a short distance from her. He looked cold and wet, neither of which ought to have surprised her since he had apparently donated his coat to make her a tent to shelter her from the rainfall and donated his T-shirt to keep her warm and to create her bandage.

Rinko muttered out a few girlish noises of confusion before her elbow collided with the sticks at her side and the tent came crashing down around her, enveloping her in darkness. She screamed on instinct, clawing at Kevin's enormous overcoat, which was as heavy as it was long. She drew in a deep breath and instantly regretted her actions as she suddenly found her senses filled with the scents of Kevin's sweat and blood from his coat. She screamed again and tried to stand, staggering and ultimately tripping over all the material around her. When she eventually managed to uncover herself she found that she had landed with her face mere inches from Kevin's feet. She gasped and looked up at him, expecting him to laugh at her clumsiness or else remark on how ridiculous she looked; but instead he just stared blankly back at her in silence.

"I thought I told you not to follow me, you monster!" she grumbled as she crawled out of his coat and got to her feet.

She began swiping her hands at her clothing in an attempt to smooth the fabric and dust off any excess dirt. From the corner of her eye she saw Kevin pick something up and dangle it at his side in her general direction. She slowly halted her actions and turned towards him, unsure what to think of him or herself as she found her ripped bag, stuffed with her belongings, suspended from his fingers.

"I'm not grateful," she said moodily, snatching the bag from him.

She quickly gathered it up to stop a repeat of the previous night relieved that she was somehow able to get it back off of him without dropping any of the contents. She cuddled the bag close to her chest and scowled down at Kevin, who did little more than look back at her.

"I still think that you're a nasty monster," she told him.

When he remained unaffected she continued.

"Also, you did this too tightly," she said, holding up her bandaged hand. "It hurts."

She turned her chin up into the air and looked down her nose at him haughtily, but still he appeared not to care.

"I don't know how you found me," she said. "I ran really fast and really far last night."

Still he did not answer her.

"And I don't know how you managed to bandage up my hand, and build a tent around me," she added. "That was very sneaky of you."

"You stumbled slowly for about 200 yards before you fell over and cried yourself to sleep in a muddy puddle."

Rinko gasped, hugging her bag tighter.

"But that's irrelevant," Kevin continued. "I came here to make a deal with you."

"No deal!" Rinko hurriedly said.

"Why don't you shut-up and let me finish?"

"You shut-up! I'm not making any deals with you! You're the devil! I won't make a deal with the devil!"

"Is that an upgrade from being a monster?"

Rinko faltered for a moment as she thought she heard a slight lilt of sarcasm in Kevin's tone: was he mocking her?

"Since you won't tell me where Mantaro is, I'd like you to take me to him," Kevin continued. "Today. No more silly childish little games. I don't like games. I never have. Not even when I was a silly little child like you and Mantaro still are now."

"I'm not a child!" Rinko snapped, stamping a foot angrily at him. "You're a child! You're a big, mean, ugly child! And you're a monster!"

Rinko placed down her bag and grabbed up two handfuls of grass and dirt, turning to fling them at Kevin. He remained impassive as grass rolled over his bare chest and only Rinko responded when a tiny stone chip clinked against his iron mask. She yelped and panicked for a moment but when she saw that Kevin was not responding she grabbed up more grass and continued throwing it at him.

"How long do we have to do this?" he asked dryly.

"You horrible, horrible monster! I hate you!" Rinko replied before dropping into a seated position and crossing her arms moodily.

"Well that wasn't childish at all…" Kevin muttered.

"Shut-up!" Rinko snapped at him.

"I can certainly see why you're Mantaro's love interest. Birds of a feather truly do fly together."

"Don't you dare talk about my relationship with Mantaro! He's my friend! I don't expect you to know what that means because you don't have any friends! You're just a–"

"Monster?"

Rinko thinned her eyes at Kevin but still he remained emotionless.

"What gives you the right to do this?" she spat.

"What gives me the right to reclaim my own property from a thief?" he asked.

"I'm not talking about that!" she sneered. "I'm talking about you coming after me and dressing my wound and giving me shelter and-wait, that was all you did, wasn't it?"

When Kevin did not answer her Rinko continued.

"I don't remember you doing any of those things…"

"You were asleep."

"That's despicable! Didn't anyone ever teach you that it's rude to touch a girl in her sleep?"

Rinko's chest heaved with laboured breaths of anger as she glared at Kevin expectant of an answer. But, much to her infuriation, he remained silent, simply staring right back at her with yellow eyes encased in the shadows of an expressionless and cold dark blue iron mask.

"You're just–"

"A monster, I get it."

Rinko gasped out a squawk of indignation, her anger mounting to the point that she worried she might pass out from the physical exhaustion it was causing her. He really a monster! He had a member of the DMP and he fought brutally and with unnecessary force during the Chojin Olympics. The way he had treated Mantaro, destroying him physically and psychologically, was just monstrous! He was a monster!

But despite her mounting hatred of him Rinko found that she could not look away from Kevin's eyes – and as she looked at them she saw them change shape a little, the corners thinning and curling upwards.

Was he smiling?

"I hate you!" she barked, bundling up her bag and rising to her feet.

She began walking towards the road again, curving around to follow it as she neared it.

"We're headed north then are we?" Kevin called after her.

Rinko looked back at the trees in panic. Kevin was on his feet and he had begun pulling his tattered T-shirt back on. She yelped out in alarm and broke into a run – although a small part of her already knew that attempting to flee Kevin was probably a pointless waste of her energy, as apparently he was as tenacious outside the wrestling ring as he was inside it.


	9. Strategy

Chapter 9: Strategy

Travelling alone and without a specific purpose or end destination was becoming increasingly lonely. As the sun passed the midway point in its journey across the sky, Mantaro began thinking about what he had left behind him. Meat was typically a real taskmaster and often just a persistent pest. He was all about rules: do this, try that, eat this, drink that, stop playing video games, don't go to that bar, don't put your finger up there. Two days without the little nag had been unusually quiet but not nearly as peaceful as Mantaro had expected that it would be. Since his arrival on Earth Meat had constantly been at his side and life without him was not the carefree ride Mantaro had thought that it would be. He had sorely missed his trusted second during his fight against Kevin Mask but he found that he missed Meat even more since he had run away. He knew that even though he nagged a lot, Meat did care about him and did always have his best interests at heart.

Meat was more than just Mantaro's second: he was his friend.

Mantaro missed other friends too. He wondered if they would be going out to a karaoke bar that night and what they had done the night before. He missed laughing with them and playing the King Game. But as he thought back to all of their antics over the last year his time spent with them suddenly seemed so very juvenile and their actions very unnecessary. Meat had always warned him that he was wasting precious training time when he chose to go out to party with his friends night after night but he never really cared before. He had actually enjoyed sharing the joke with his friends of what elaborate lie he had told or trick he had played on Meat in order to escape his training to fool around and play games instead.

Suddenly thoughts of Meat invoked guilt and thoughts of his friends invoked regret. Guilt for not listening, for not working harder and for not caring more about what Meat was trying to tell him and the consequences of not taking that advice and regret for being so foolish and making a mockery of Meat and his attempts to help him. Inside the ring he had always listened to and followed all the instructions from his second, if only he had thought to do the same outside the ring perhaps things could have turned out so very differently at the final round of the Chojin Olympics.

Kid, Gazelleman, Sieuchin and Checkmate all fought alone. None of them had seconds. But then none of them had even made it through the preliminaries of the Chojin Olympics. Jade had qualified and fought impressively in his battle against Ricardo – but unlike Mantaro's other friends Jade did have a second to guide him through his battles. And of course Kevin Mask had employed a second during the Chojin Olympics even though he usually worked alone. And Kevin had listened very carefully to his second, he had always done exactly what his second told him to do and he had always trained as long and as hard as his second made him everyday without fail.

And Kevin Mask had won the Chojin Olympics.

Before he had faced Kevin, Mantaro had always managed to overcome his opponents by using his inner fire, the unique power gifted to him through his genes. But facing Kevin that strategy had, for the first time ever, failed him. Kevin had not so much as flinched when Mantaro had used his most effective defensive tactics or even when Mantaro had launched his most devastating offensive manoeuvres. Instead of backing down or becoming overwhelmed, Kevin had just kept getting stronger, more resourceful and more determined to win.

Kevin Mask had stopped the Muscle Millennium.

If Meat had been at his side Mantaro would not have lost. If he had spent the time between his semi-final bout against Ricardo and his final confrontation against Kevin training with Meat and planning a strategy to face the Iron Knight victory would have been assured. Meat would have guided him through the tougher moments just like he always had done before and together they would have crushed Kevin and his second.

Kevin Mask stopped the Muscle Millennium.

Mantaro had never really thought about it before but even his own father, who had twice achieved the accolade of becoming Chojin Olympics Champion, had not done so without a second at his side. More importantly his second had been Meat who was renowned by all as a genius of wrestling tactics.

Kevin Mask had countered the Muscle Millennium.

Kevin had clearly had an advantage over Mantaro in the Chojin Olympics final: he had had legend Warsman in his corner guiding his every move while Mantaro had only had The Nosonman who, although he was a talented wrestler, was hardly a comparable mastermind when weighed against an experienced colossus like Warsman.

Kevin Mask had defeated the Muscle Millennium.

Warsman must have been studying Mantaro's tactics before the final and he had the advantage of having fought against Mantaro's own father and so also knew how a Chojin trained by Meat would approach such a bout. Without Warsman Kevin Mask would never have stopped and countered the Muscle Millennium. The moment he had done that had felt just like Mantaro's fight against Mars when Mars had countered the Kinniku Buster, a move Mantaro had held a blind and unwavering faith in the abilities of. In that moment, he had been forced to admit that the Kinniku Buster was not unstoppable or invincible and that it was in fact flawed; something that had overwhelmed him at first and almost cost him the win. But unlike Mars Kevin had not toiled during their fight, he had not allowed Mantaro the opportunity to formulate an alternate mode of attack and he had not shown any weaknesses that Mantaro could have exploited to his advantage. In fact Kevin had barely allowed Mantaro to draw breath after he had somehow countered the Muscle Millennium because after they landed on the canvas he had wasted no time in locking Mantaro into the vicious OLAP, which had been the beginning of the end for the Kinniku prince's hopes of victory.

Perhaps that was the secret to success: Mantaro had to train and fight exactly the way Meat told him to, but when he was not facing a big challenge like the Chojin Olympics he had to train alone. Completely and utterly alone just like Kevin Mask did.

Mantaro was suddenly torn from his thoughts as he spotted a greying old man at the other side of the road drinking from a flask. The man himself was of no particular interest but he looked to be about the same size as Mantaro and he was wearing a pair of black knee-high boots.

Mantaro shifted direction and crossed the road towards the man, who did not notice his approach despite the loud clunking sound the Chojin Olympic Champion trophy was making in his back pack with every step he took.

"Hey, old man," Mantaro called to the man as he drew closer. "Swap boots with me."

The man scowled at Mantaro sceptically at first. He eyed him over and curled his lip a little as though disgusted with what he saw.

"No," he said flatly.

"Do it," Mantaro insisted.

"I don't want to," the man replied.

"I'll take them by force," Mantaro warned him.

"Look kid, there's a shelter for lost boys like you not far from here. Why don't you just keep walking and I'll pretend we never had this conversation?"

"I don't think so. I want those boots."

The man sighed before slowly rising to his feet.

"Alright punk," he said. "If you can knock me off my feet you can have them. And you can keep your own ugly boots, I don't want them."

"Fine."

Mantaro casually pushed forwards the heel of one hand and reached out the other. In the blink of an eye his first hand collided with the man's shoulder and sent him flying backwards and his other hand caught one of the man's ankles as he fell to the ground.

"Thanks, old man," he said as he tugged the first boot from the man's foot.

After taking both of boots and leaving the bewildered man with his wrestling boots, Mantaro took a moment to inspect his winnings. They were a little worn and scuffed at the toes and heels, but that really only added to their authenticity. Mantaro put them on with a smile and continued on his journey. He shortly discovered that the boots were just slightly too small for him but he was determined to endure the discomfort for the sake of having the right footwear.

After another hour of walking he found himself in a small suburban town. Mantaro stopped by a shop window, admiring his new appearance. The boots looked perfect and so did the coat and the championship belt still around his waist. He turned up the collar for added effect and allowed himself to smile. He was starting to look really good. His next strategy was to swap his wrestling gear for some more appropriate clothing and then he would look perfect.

He would look just like Kevin Mask.


	10. Hunger

Chapter 10: Hunger

Rinko cursed as she twice missed pushing her cigarette between her lips. Her hands were shaking and her lips were quivering making it almost impossible to smoke; but still she persisted. A gust of wind caught her hair and wound it around her face making her curse again as the smell of burning hair reached her. She grabbed at her cigarette with one hand and pushed her hair back with the other. As she exhaled a swirling grey cloud of smoke she began to feel a little relief; but her respite was short-lived as her stomach contracted and growled again. She hurriedly clamped a hand over her mid-section and pushed her cigarette between her lips again, taking a long draw on it as her eyes wandered over to the cheerful little roadside café at other side of the road.

Sitting on a damp rock with nothing to sustain her but a handful of cigarettes and a half-drunk bottle of mineral water was starting to try Rinko's endurance. She had long crossed the line from hunger to starvation. Her every muscle ached from continually running from Kevin Mask and she had sweated into her clothes leaving her with a burning desire for a hot bath.

"Damn you Mantaro," she grumbled through a mouthful of smoke.

She hoped that he was alright but she also hoped that she would reach him soon. She had not expected to spend any great amount of time on the road – Kevin had been right in that assumption at least. She was not really sure how she had expected her pursuit of Mantaro to go, but she did have an image in her mind of Mantaro and herself hiding in a quaint little cottage somewhere in the hills. He would go outside and chop wood for a fire and hunt for food and she would stay at home and cook for them both and make clothes.

Rinko paused, frowning deeply and drawing on her cigarette again. That was hardly an exciting dream for a fifteen-year old girl and it was not even the sort of dream she would have wanted for herself at any stage in life. And yet still it seemed soothing to think of it.

It was romantic.

Romantic?

Rinko slowly ground her cigarette into the rock at her side. She did think that running away with Mantaro and living in a remote location with him was romantic so did it then follow that she was in fact in love with him?

Suddenly Rinko felt very small and afraid.

She was not scared of being in love. She not quite as enraptured by tales of candlelit dinners and moonlight picnics as her friends Tamaki and Keiko were (she was more of a practical person like Mari) but Rinko did still appreciate romantic gestures. She had never pictured herself as a homely type who would happily retire to the life of a housewife: yet she had just found peace in the thought of playing that exact role with Mantaro at her side.

It was almost as though he had changed her somehow.

Thinking a little harder on the matter Rinko realised that Mantaro had changed her. She had been a tough, independent, almost tomboy like girl before she met him, and yet since he had entered her life she had become gentler and more emotional and her entire life had become caught up in Chojin wrestling in much the same way Mari's life had been all about Suguru and his exploits a generation earlier. And that, for Rinko, was the real stumbling block. She did not want to become just like Mari and yet the more she thought about her future and Mantaro the more likely it seemed that she was deemed to follow in Mari's footsteps.

Rinko's mind suddenly went blank as her mouth began to flood and she was forced to swallow repeatedly to clear it. Her nose was picking up the warm and welcoming fragrances of freshly made miso soup, pork noodles and sweet green tea. She was beginning to understand why dogs dribbled saliva when they were hungry because she was almost certain that she was doing the exact same thing right at that moment. She could not understand why the smell of food was suddenly so pronounced since up until that point she had only caught the faintest whiff of miso on the air when the door of the café had been open and the wind had blown in her direction; but as a shadow fell over her she suddenly found the source of the smell.

Rinko slowly turned her head and tilted it back to look up at the darkened figure towering over her. Kevin was persistent, she thought irritably, and now he was going to torment her by indulging in breakfast whilst she sat and starved.

What a monster.

Rinko grunted and turned her head away from him. She tried to keep her head up high and maintain her dignity but promptly failed in her mission as the wind blew her hair wildly over her face and into her mouth and her stomach began groaning in hungered complaint. She struggled to smooth her hair back and started to stand intent on walking away before Kevin could anger her again, but as she started to lift herself from the rock she suddenly spotted something at her side.

"What's that?" she asked bluntly, pointing at the small tray balanced on the rock at her side.

"Where I come from we call it breakfast," Kevin replied.

Rinko looked down at the tray and carefully studied its contents. There was a small bowl of miso soup, a medium bowl of pork noodles and a half-empty pot of tea alongside an empty bowl.

"I didn't ask for your charity," she said stubbornly, crossing her arms and turning her head from him.

She sat back down next to the tray, silently telling herself that as soon as Kevin left her side and she was confident that he would not see her, she would gorge herself on the food and drink before kicking the tray and the bowls on to the road to give the impression that she had cast them aside out of disgust. Feeling a little happier in the knowledge that she would soon get a hot meal and the satisfaction of spiting Kevin – which was really how he deserved to be treated after what he had done to Mantaro – Rinko allowed herself to smile a little.

After what she felt was sufficient time for Kevin to have left her she turned back, starting in alarm as she spotted him sat on the grass a short distance from her side, his legs crossed in front of himself. He had apparently finished his own meal but he was still supporting a bowl of tea in one hand. Rinko's initial anger at his presence was momentarily replaced by curiosity: the food had clearly been eaten and some of the tea had been drunk but Kevin's large iron mask was still firmly in place over his entire head. She watched him carefully as she decided that he would have to take the mask off in order to finish his tea and if nothing else she would get to see what his face actually looked like.

It was an odd concept. Rinko had often wondered what Mantaro's real face looked like but she had never even considered what Kevin might look like. In fact, she thought to herself, she had never even thought of him having a face at all. Mantaro's face had been a more realistic ideal as his rubber mask was moulded to his features and showed all of his expressions, unlike Kevin's unmoving iron helmet. Also, Mantaro had occasionally torn his mask and of course Kevin had started peeling it off during their confrontation in the final round of the Chojin Olympics which had afforded Rinko a clear view of Mantaro's features from just below his nose downwards and a shaded view of the sides of his face after he had bitten down on the bottom of the mask and the sides had stretched and lifted.

From what little she had actually seen of Mantaro, Rinko had thought that he looked quite cute.

But she could not even begin to picture how Kevin might look. She tried then to think of any Englishmen that she knew: but the only two that came to her mind were the soccer player David Beckham and Jack the Ripper, a monstrous man she had learnt about at school, who had become famous for murdering and mutilating women. Although neither really helped her picture Kevin's face she did find it quite amusing that one had the appearance of a suave and sophisticated gentleman and the other was a monster, and that the two combined made Kevin Mask's personality.

Kevin produced a straw, seemingly from nowhere, dropped one end into the bowl and fed the other end through the eyehole of his mask down to his mouth.

"That's stupid!" Rinko spat angrily. "That's the most stupid thing I've ever seen!"

Kevin ignored her, apparently drinking his tea as the liquid began shooting up the straw and draining from the bowl. The moment seemed to drag on until eventually the bowl emptied and Kevin placed it down and pulled the straw from his mask. Rinko watched him gather up his bowls and stack them back onto his own tray. He then started across the road to return them to the café. Rinko was so distracted watching him leave that she almost forgot all about the food at her side; only when another gust of wind brought the smells of the warm food to her did she turn from Kevin to the food, delighting that she finally had the chance to eat without him seeing her.

She hurriedly poured herself some tea and then grabbed up the bowl of soup, lifting it to her lips and gulping down the contents in a way that would have made Mari faint to witness. Once she had finished the soup she hurriedly dragged her sleeve across her mouth to clear any residue it may have left before greedily gulping down some tea and then turning to the pork noodles. She moaned happily as she munched her way through the noodles, which tasted divine to her starved senses.

"I thought it was pretty poor myself, but I suppose you can't really expect much more from a substandard establishment like that."

Rinko froze, a wall of noodles hanging from her mouth making her look like a fat-cheeked cthulhu.

"I think you have something in your teeth," Kevin added.

Rinko tried to swallow but found herself stuck, her mouth jammed with food. She briefly wondered how Mantaro managed to stuff food into his mouth the way he did and not die of indigestion. She chewed as vigorously as she could in an attempt to regain some dignity, inwardly cursing as Kevin stood casually over her, watching her every move as though he found her predicament entertaining. She thinned her eyes at him in the hope that a stern look would deter him; but still he did not budge. Deciding that her secret was out anyway Rinko proceeded to finish her meal and drink before calmly stacking her bowls on her tray.

She quietly stood with her tray and gave Kevin one last scowl before spinning on her heels and marching across the road towards the café. Once she was inside the café she chanced a backwards glance, rejoicing as she saw that Kevin was still standing where she had left him, presenting her with an ideal opportunity to escape him. She quickly deposited her tray on the nearest table and ran to the toilets at the back of the café where she wasted no time climbing up to the window and throwing it open. She flung her bag out of the window and scrambled at the window-frame, hoisting her head and shoulders out through the opening.

The drop on the other side was a little higher than Rinko had expected it to be and she was sure that it had not been so high from the inside, but she was determined not to waste her chance to flee and so she pushed onwards wriggling the upper half of her body out of the window. As her hips passed through the window-frame she momentarily found herself stuck. Her weight rocked from one end of her body to the other and she waved her arms about at her sides to keep her balance silently hoping that nobody could see her stuck in her prone position.

As she finally found her balance Rinko looked up and found that the window she was hanging from faced the rock she had eaten breakfast on. Kevin gave her a small wave but otherwise remained still as he watched her.

She cursed and growled as she tried to free herself, her struggles causing the balance of her weight to shift again. For a brief moment she thought she might slip back down inside the café; but a second later her hips scraped against the wood either side of her and with a scream of alarm she fell to the ground where she crashed in an ungraceful heap. She quickly recovered herself and grabbed up the items that had fallen from her torn bag on impact with the ground before getting to her feet. She was not entirely surprised to see Kevin approaching her as she found her feet again but she focussed her energy on calming herself down as she could feel her embarrassment burning in her cheeks and she did not want to him to see that she cared about anything that he thought or did.

"Here," he said.

He stopped at her side and held out a bottle of mineral water towards her. She looked down at it blankly for a moment before looking up at him questioningly.

"I noticed that yours was nearly finished," he explained. "So I got you another one. You'll probably need it. Especially right now, you look like you need to cool down."

Rinko snarled angrily and snatched the bottle from his hand. He ignored her response and lifted his coat up over one shoulder before holding out his other hand to indicate that she should walk ahead of him. She looked down at the bottle in her hand, which she was gripping into so hard her fingers were white and the plastic surface of the bottle was warping.

"I don't care that you bought me food, or that you got me this," she said, looking up at Kevin and shaking the bottle at him. "And now you're pretending to be all polite by letting me walk first. None of those things make you a gentleman. You're still just a monster to me."

Kevin's hand lowered a little and again Rinko wished that she could read his expression, but as always his emotions were hidden behind metal and shadows.

"You have to walk first," he eventually said. "I'm following you, remember?"

Rinko felt her face become hotter still as her jaw tried to work through some words that her voice failed to give any volume to. She again saw a slight change in Kevin's eyes and she was unsure if he was mocking her or just being the horrid monster that he was; and, she thought miserably, if she did not find Mantaro soon, she would have plenty of time to find out which was the correct answer.


	11. Scar

The manga has shown flashbacks of when Kevin Mask got his tattoo a few times and each time it has shown something different. During the Chojin Olympics his flashbacks show that it was a Ta Moko style tattoo and I quite liked that idea because that seems more like his style, so that is what I am going for here.

Chapter 11: Scar

"What are you looking at?"

Rinko uttered out a noise that sounded more like a deer clearing its throat than herself answering Kevin's question. He turned his head a little to look back over his shoulder at her.

"It just…"

Rinko tried to explain what she was thinking but found herself genuinely at a loss for words. She was not really even sure that she had been thinking anything coherent since Kevin removed his T-shirt and turned his back on her because from that moment on she had been gawping shamelessly at the expansive tattoo on his back which she was, for the first time ever, able to study at close range.

"Mantaro isn't on there," Kevin said before turning his head away again.

Truthfully Rinko had not been looking for Mantaro on the web of fallen bodies. She almost felt guilty for not ever considering that Kevin might have had Mantaro added to his collection, but her thoughts had been primarily concerned with exactly what sort of tattoo it actually was.

"Is there a name for that?" she asked carefully.

"Yes," Kevin replied. "The word you're looking for is meddlesome."

"Wh-what?"

Rinko stopped, her face going cold and pale before growing warmer and flushing red.

"Let's not bother with small talk, let's just find your idiot friend," Kevin suggested.

He had kept on walking and had not looked back but Rinko doubted that she could have felt any worse if he had turned around and stood directly in front of her to deliver his last remark.

"I thought you were proud of that tattoo," Rinko grumbled as she started after him.

"I am proud of it," Kevin replied.

Rinko was a little surprised that he had managed to hear her, as she had been quite far behind him and she had been talking under her breath; and besides, with that thick iron mask covering his ears, how could his hearing still be so sharp?

"But you won't talk about it," she added, feeling a little braver as she skipped a few steps to catch up to him again.

He did not answer her and so Rinko found another burst of confidence and decided to push him further on the matter.

"I've heard about those sorts of tattoos," she said. "I didn't realise yours was that kind. I thought it was a normal tattoo, like the ones you can get done at any old tattoo shop. Did it hurt really bad?"

Rinko waited what she considered to be a reasonable amount of time for Kevin to have answered her question and when he still remained silent she reached out a hand towards the lines on his back; but in the instant before her fingertips made contact he turned sharply, moving his back out of her reach and fixing his eyes onto her.

"It looks pretty deep," she said. "It's kind of more like a network of scars than a tattoo."

"It's not a fashion accessory," Kevin said moodily. "It's a statement of what I am."

Rinko tilted her head a little.

"Doesn't that make it a fashion accessory?"

She saw Kevin's eyes thin and she was glad that the rest of his expression was not visible as she was pretty sure that it would look quite frightening at that moment in time. She thought it odd that his expressions were only obvious when he was angry or being nasty about something but then she wondered if he was ever anything other than angry and nasty. Perhaps he never got happy about anything and so the reason she had never noticed a kind expression in his eyes was because he never wore one.

"Maybe you should be concentrating on Mantaro," Kevin suggested, pointing to one side.

Rinko stared blankly at him, his words seeming misplaced after their last exchange. When he did not move or speak she eventually ran her eyes along the length of his arm to his finger, following the direction in which was pointed.

"Oh no!" she gasped, dropping her bag and running blindly towards the item Kevin was pointing at.

She dropped to her knees on the grass by the chunk of rubber and carefully reached her hands out towards it. Even before she touched it she knew that it was a section of Mantaro's mask, but a small part of her still wanted to believe that it was something else. Why should there be a chunk of his mask lying at the side of the road?

She slowly smoothed her fingers over the surface of the rubber, tears forming in her eyes as she thought of Mantaro with his torn mask lying bandaged in a hospital bed after his loss to Kevin Mask. Why had he run away? It was such a stupid thing to do, especially as he had stolen the championship from Kevin. Had he really found it so hard to come to terms with his loss?

Rinko turned the section of mask over and instantly snatched her hand back with a yelp of shock. There were bloodstains on the underside of the rubber, some very old and some quite recent. It should not have surprised her to see the marks as Mantaro had bled profusely during his fight, but somehow seeing his blood on the torn piece of mask just made his case seem all the more pitiful.

"Looks like something tore it off," Kevin said casually, kicking the piece of mask a little and sending it rolling across the grass. "He was probably fighting someone, or something."

Rinko felt something grow cold deep inside of her gut and she slowly turned her head, her eyes looking up at Kevin with a burning anger that evaporated her tears.

"Well at least I know you're taking me the right way," he concluded. "I know how you girls like to lie, I thought perhaps you might try to deceive me."

"You monster!" she growled. "How could you?"

"Excuse me?"

Rinko growled in frustration before crawling across the grass to where the piece of Mantaro's mask had landed. She grabbed it up and pressed it to her chest, sighing heavily as she tried not to cry again. She found Kevin's words echoing around her head, and suddenly her battle against her own emotions was lost: what if Mantaro had been fighting someone and they had torn off his mask? Her eyes snapped open and she gasped in horror, her chest tightening and her eyes blurring with tears again. Both Mari and Kevin had said during the final round of the Chojin Olympics that if Mantaro's mask came off, he would have to take his own life, in accordance with the laws of his people.

"Oh no…" she muttered. "What if he's dead already?"

She slowly pulled the chunk of rubber into her line of sight, snivelling as her tears fell to the surface of the rubber. In her mind, the only thing worse than Mantaro dying in a fight or in some sort of accident was the thought of him killing himself. And, she thought miserably, if anything sinister had befallen him, it was all her fault. She had been selfish and let her own feelings hold her back from supporting him when he had needed her the most during his recovery in the hospital and now poor Mantaro was paying the price for her own poor judgement.

"Let's not be melodramatic about this."

Rinko turned her head sharply to look up at Kevin, squaring her jaw and drawing her eyebrows together into an angered scowl of disgust.

"You did this!" she hissed.

Kevin did not answer her and so she got to her feet and jabbed an accusing finger towards him.

"This all your fault!" she said. "You're the one who made Mantaro run away! What if something really bad has happened to him? What then?"

Rinko shook the chunk of Mantaro's mask at Kevin as she awaited his response. She reasoned that she should really not have been surprised that he did not answer her and yet she found herself shocked regardless.

"You don't even care," she concluded. "You don't care at all. You don't care about anything. You're heartless."

Rinko hesitated before an idea occurred to her of how else she could let him know exactly what she thought of him at that moment in time; but before she could voice her thoughts she stopped short as she suddenly saw something. It was brief, but distinct. She was sure that a mistimed blink on her part would have meant that she would have missed it entirely. But she had not missed it. She had clearly seen it.

Kevin's expression had changed.

For a mere instant in time something had flickered across his eyes, a small hint of emotion, a tiny betrayal of feeling that left Rinko thinking that perhaps even Kevin Mask did actually have a heart after all. A small, largely uncaring heart, but a heart nonetheless. This, she thought to herself, was an ideal opportunity to attack. She had a slight advantage over him now and he had just presented a perfect opening for her; but her anger had dissipated and the desire to argue was gone.

"We should keep going," she said instead.

She gathered up her bag and added the piece of Mantaro's mask to its contents before walking onwards. As she passed Kevin she chanced a brief glance in his direction but he did not respond. She continued on a short way before slowing her pace as she failed to hear Kevin's heavy footsteps behind her. She slowed until she had stopped completely, tilting her head a little to listen for any sounds of Kevin following her. When she could hear none she looked back over her shoulder, finding that he was still where she had left him, his back partially turned to her, his eyes apparently still looking at the point on the ground where she had found the piece of Mantaro's mask.

His hands were at his sides, his T-shirt and coat dangling from one hand, leaving his back completely bare and almost all of his tattoo visible (though his long hair was still obscuring some of it). Rinko had heard about that particular style of tattooing, but she had never actually seen one such tattoo other than on television. Her clearest memory of the art was that she had been watching television with her friends quite late one night and a documentary about it had come on, showing how the Maori people created the tattoos. She remembered Tamaki vomiting and Keiko screaming a lot when one of the presenters of the show had volunteered to be tattooed and the whole process had been shown. Although Rinko had stayed quiet and kept her dinner in her stomach she had been no less moved by the imagery than her friends had.

It had looked really, really painful.

And every time Kevin destroyed an opponent he chose to go back and have the process repeated to create an image of his fallen foe.

Rinko gulped audibly as Kevin turned around to face her and started towards her. She silently wished that he would answer her questions about his tattoo. Not that she was interested in him personally, it was just that she was curious about whether or not it hurt as badly as it looked like it might and if he had to go to a specialist for the procedure and if that was really expensive.

But he had already made it clear to her that he would not talk about it. Which was disappointing. Only because she was curious. Not because she had any interest in him or his life. At all.


	12. Facing Facts

Chapter 12: Facing Facts

This, Mantaro thought to himself, would never have happened to Kevin Mask. In fact, it would not have happened to him if he had won the Chojin Olympics – which is what was actually meant to have happened. It was just some strange cosmic joke that he had not.

But despite how his own mind justified his circumstances, he could not escape them: he had just been "escorted" from a fairground for eating out of the trash.

It seemed pretty harsh to Mantaro. He had not been bothering anyone after all. And surely he had been doing them a favour by helping reduce their waste? Setting four security staff to practically carry him out seemed excessive. It was almost as if none of them had even recognised him, because as they had closed the gate on him he had shouted out a reminder to them of his name and his role on their planet: and they had suddenly gone pale and given him funny looks. What was that look on their faces? Was it fear? Pity? Was that it? Had he become something pitiful since losing out the championship to Kevin Mask?

He was confident that he did not look pitiful. He had been through the hall of mirrors and – apart from that oval mirror that had made his face look a little bit piggy and his mid-section look grossly inflated – he had looked really good. And obviously that one mirror that had made him look bad was one of those stupid mirrors they put in there to freak people out. After all, there was nothing fat or pig-like about Mantaro. He was svelte, muscular and gorgeous: everybody knew that. Clearly that mirror was a liar.

But despite looking like an irresistible hunk of a man with a bit of a bad-boy attitude (thanks to his new attire) Mantaro did not feel as great as he looked. In fact, he felt quite miserable. His feet were really hurting. Why had that stupid old man not warned him that the boots were the wrong size for him? Apparently Meat had been right again: there really were a lot of mean people on Earth who would lie to him just to get something from him. He had traded his boots to that man in good faith. That stupid old man was now walking around in Mantaro's boots he had worn especially for the final round of the resurrected Chojin Olympics. Any item of clothing worn that day by Mantaro Kinniku – as the rightful champion – was bound to be worth millions.

Also the food he had been scavenging had left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. It almost tasted like he had eaten something rotten. The security staff of the fairground had thrown him out, but really he ought to have thrown them out for serving such horrid tasting food. Most of it had been soggy and tasted like cheap soda anyway.

But Mantaro had little other choice in the matter. Meat had refused to bring him any money while he was still in the hospital and so Mantaro had been forced to run away penniless. He had hoped that he might meet some girls along the way who would pay him for his autograph, or to have a photograph taken with him. Maybe for other things too. He had paid girls to spend time with him before surely they owed him a return on his investments? But as it was, he had not yet found a way to make any money. Not that he had tried yet, since he had invested all of his free time taking back the championship (which was rightfully his) and trying out being a loner.

Being alone for prolonged periods of time was quite strange. The voice inside his head had been talking a lot more than it usually did. He was not really sure that he wanted to listen to it any more, but it never seemed to stop and so he had no other choice. Most of the time it taunted him as he relieved moments of his failure inside his mind's eyes. Some of the time it contemplated his future. Occasionally it spoke about really nice things that made Mantaro smile, like Rinko.

Mantaro missed Rinko. He had worried for a long time that she had lost interest in him and decided to chase after Jade instead, but he now knew that she preferred him. After all, he was the Chojin Olympics Champion and Jade had lost in his first fight and girls always preferred a winner. Also, whilst he had been feasting from the trash can Mantaro had found a magazine for high school girls which told him that girls who wanted to get more attention from the boy they really liked always did so by pretending to like another boy in an attempt to make the boy they actually wanted jealous. Obviously that was what had been wrong with Rinko lately. She had been playing one of her girly little games to get more of his attention. He wondered what sort of game she had been playing when she had refused to visit him in hospital. Surely there was a name for that game too.

She would be really impressed when she saw Mantaro next. When she saw him stronger, dressed like a rebel and carrying the Chojin Olympics championship she would fall at his feet. He was already sure that she would be really pleased to see him when he did return. He hoped Jacqueline was pleased to see him again too.

Jacqueline really was hot. Rinko was cute, but Jacqueline was hot. She was a real woman. It was quite difficult to believe that she really was related to Harabote and Ikeman, but Mantaro was glad that she was, because that had allowed her to come into his life. And the best bit about Jacqueline was that she liked Mantaro as much as he liked her. After all, she had been all over him at the end of his fight against Kevin Mask, even though he had lost.

Mantaro stopped walking as the voice inside his head began taunting him again and he began reliving his loss yet again. It was a destructive chain reaction that he was powerless to stop once it had begun. Every sight, every sound, every ache and pain was as real as the day it had happened, and still he was doomed to relive his biggest failure and most agonising moment over and over.

When his brain eventually let go of replaying the disastrous end to the Chojin Olympics Mantaro found himself physically exhausted. Looking about himself he was suddenly aware that he could no longer see the fairground and he was out of breath. Apparently he had been running. Perhaps in his desire to escape from his memories and to escape from his past he had been trying to literally run away from them. Maybe he thought if he ran far enough and fast enough, those memories would become meaningless and his past would never bother him again.

Until that time came that he had to go back.

He knew, deep down, that one day he would have to go back to Tokyo, back to Beverly Park, back to Meat and back to the Justice Federation. But until that day came it was important that he focussed on becoming stronger and better than before. When he did return, nobody would recognise him any more, not even Meat.

"Ow!" he groaned, sitting down hard onto a nearby rock.

His feet had gone from feeling a little pained to being crippled with agony. The boots, he thought to himself, had perhaps not been such a good idea after all. But as he looked down at his feet he could not deny that the boots did look good on him and so he decided to persist with wearing them. But perhaps he would stop walking and rest for a while, since the pain was starting to travel up his legs.


	13. Consider This

Chapter 13: Consider This

"Ow!" Rinko groaned, sitting down onto a rock.

She was certain she could feel blisters forming on one foot and skin peeling from the other. She had never realised how uncomfortable her shoes had been before, but she reasoned that she had never attempted to run after a missing Chojin before and so the shoes had never really been tested to the limits she had just pushed them to.

A short way ahead of her Kevin had stopped and turned back a little, his hands on his hips, his head tilted back as though he had found something interesting to look at in the sky. Rinko knew that he was actually watching her to see what she was doing. He was checking that she was not about to run away from him again. If she thought that he would understand her, she would have told him that she would not be running anywhere any time soon with her feet the way they were; but Kevin understood neither pain nor other people's feelings, so she remained silent.

"Are you stalling because we're close to Mantaro?"

Rinko sighed and rolled her eyes. As though to confirm her suspicions Kevin's question was as ridiculous as it was selfish.

"No, my feet hurt!" she snapped back at him.

"Of course they do," he replied.

"No, they really do hurt!" Rinko argued.

Kevin turned his head in her direction. For a moment they stared at each other in silence. Rinko hoped that he would give up and leave her alone but apparently luck was not on her side that day as he instead began walking back towards her. She watched him with a look of disgust as she readied herself for an argument, but her expression quickly changed and her anger dissolved in a wave of confusion and panic as he suddenly dropped onto his knees in front of her.

"What are you doing?" she squealed as he grabbed one of her ankles.

She was aware that she had phrased her words as more of an accusation than a question, but she still expected him to answer her. When he completely ignored her words and began tugging at her shoe her panic spiked.

"Seriously, what are you doing to me?" she demanded.

She did not bother struggling as she had learned the hard way when she cut her hand that struggling against him only resulted in her hurting herself so she tried to dissuade him with her words.

"You shouldn't even be touching me!" she snipped, folding her arms across her chest. "Mantaro would be furious if he knew that you were trying to…"

Rinko's words faded into silence as Kevin dropped her shoe to the ground and she suddenly felt the warmth of his hands against the bared skin of her foot. She grabbed at the rock at her sides as he lifted her foot up a little to study it, off-setting her balance as he did so.

"You should probably rest for a while," he concluded.

Rinko stared at him in dumb fascination as she silently wondered why her breathing had suddenly become so laboured.

"I don't really want to waste any more time," he continued. "So I'll just carry you for the rest of the day."

"What?" Rinko yelped.

Kevin stood up in front of her, looking suddenly enormous and a little menacing.

"Don't touch me!" she warned him.

She leaned back in expectation of him trying to grab a hold of her, but he did not move.

"I just need a short rest and then I'll be fine to go on," she insisted. "If Mantaro can manage this journey with all of his terrible injuries I'm sure I can manage it with a couple of blisters!"

Kevin muttered something indecipherable and turned away from Rinko. She tilted her head to one side in confusion: she was not even sure that he had spoken Japanese, as his words had sounded positively foreign. Although, she thought to herself, he did have quite a pronounced accent and sometimes his words were a little unclear in moments of anger. She had noticed that when he was calm he tried to enunciate a little better, but when he was angered he no longer seemed to care and his Japanese was a little jagged as his own accent crept into his words. Of course he spoke fluent Japanese, never pausing for thought or struggling to find the right words; but he did sometimes sound distinctly… British. It was sometimes a little distracting when he spoke, but it also made it a little difficult to remain serious when he lost his temper. Mantaro had often joked that Kevin spoke funny and Tamaki and Keiko had always yelled at him not to criticise their favourite Chojin, but Rinko was starting to understand what Mantaro had found so amusing.

It was perhaps Kevin's only weakness.

Thinking about weaknesses Rinko wondered if she ought to capitalise on the fact that he was apparently feeling a little sympathetic towards her because of her blistered feet. She hurriedly pulled her shoe back on, wincing a little at the realisation that her foot had swollen and cramming it back into her shoe was quite a task; but she persisted until she had her shoe securely back in place. She then turned her head to locate Kevin, finding him sat with his back against a rock a little further up the road. His long coat lay in a crumpled pile at his side and he was wearing his T-shirt, despite the fact that a section of it was torn off, exposing a line of bare skin around his waist. Rinko looked briefly down at her hand, silently noting that the material was still wound around her hand the way Kevin had done it. She briefly considered that she ought to remove it, before deciding to do that later. Instead she hopped off the rock and walked over to Kevin, kneeling down at his side.

"Kevin?" she said softly.

He grunted but otherwise did not respond, his eyes fixed on something at the other side of the road.

"Look, I really don't know where Mantaro is," she said slowly. "I just switched on the television yesterday morning and saw that he was gone. I didn't even think, I just packed a bag and ran. I thought I knew him well enough to know which way he might go."

Kevin sighed heavily, his chest rising and falling visibly.

"I understand," he said tightly.

"You do?" Rinko said, allowing herself to smile in optimistic relief.

"You're scared and you want to go back home," he continued, his words making Rinko's smile vanish. "That's fine. I don't really need your help to find him. This is taking far too long anyway. I don't have the leisure of having time to waste chasing endlessly after an idiot."

"I don't even know why I bothered!" Rinko yelled angrily. "I'm trying so hard to be nice to you! Mantaro is my friend! What you did to him at the Chojin Olympics was horrible! It was unforgivable! You still fight like you're in the DMP! I know that you're angry that he took your stuff and I know that you're probably going to hurt him all over again when we do find him, but despite all that I'm still helping you!"

"You should stop now, because you really don't know what you're talking about," Kevin said coldly, turning his head and locking his eyes onto hers.

Rinko hesitated, the intense look in his eyes once more fixing her into a state of immobility.

"What exactly did I do to Mantaro at the Chojin Olympics?" he continued. "As I recall all I did was win. Am I not allowed to win? I thought it was a competition to define who is the best, not a tournament to make Mantaro Kinniku look good."

"But you…" Rinko began weakly. "You were so cruel!"

"Cruel?" Kevin echoed. "That's being melodramatic again. I was not cruel to Mantaro. And if I was cruel to him, what was he to me? He deliberately punched the broken section of my mask into my forehead to make me bleed, he dropped my head onto a metal post and he attempted to use his Muscle Millennium on me. Do you know what that would have done to me? Well, I'm sure you've seen what it's done to all his previous opponents. He was trying to break every bone in my face and to break both my legs. All I did to him was break his arms."

"That's not…"

Rinko wanted to argue with him, but the more she considered his words, the more sense they seemed to make. He had certainly made a very compelling argument: it was true that, had Mantaro managed to apply his finishing move to Kevin, the result would have been more devastating than the condition Mantaro had been left in. But Mantaro had never fought with malice like Kevin did. His moves were not cruel and punishing like Kevin's were.

But they caused more damage.

Rinko quietly sat back on her heels as she considered both sides of the argument very carefully.

"You don't understand my world at all," Kevin told her coldly. "Don't even bother trying to figure it out. If you aren't going to help me find Mantaro, I'll leave you at the next town and you can find your own way home from there."

Rinko watched Kevin stand and sling his coat over his shoulder. She sighed lightly in defeat and pushed herself up at his side, resisting the urge to cry; she told herself she was only tearful because she was tired and concerned for Mantaro.

"I'm fine," she said flatly. "I want to find Mantaro, I'm worried about him. And I'd rather be there when you find him."

Rinko paused, meeting Kevin's eyes. She saw a slight twitch by one of his eyes that she suspected was a sceptical eyebrow twist on his part, but she chose to ignore it. She swallowed back the urge to tell him that she did not trust him not to kill Mantaro when he found him, and continued.

"I'm fine to walk on, just please let's walk a little slower."

Kevin nodded his understanding, and together they continued on their way.


	14. Girlfriend

Chapter 14: Girlfriend

Rinko winced and sank lower in her seat as another group of girls passed by talking in less-than-quiet voices about what they were witnessing. Rinko had sunk so low and hunched over her bowl so much she had hoped that she was all but invisible; but still people were commenting on her appearance and presence in the small restaurant. She silently told herself that the fact that it was late, the restaurant was small, they were in a remote area and the Chojin Olympics were barely over and still very fresh in everyone's minds – mainly thanks to Mantaro's little stunt keeping himself and Kevin Mask in the headlines – were the real causes for what was going on around her.

But she knew that no amount of excuses she could fabricate could possibly disguise the truth: Kevin Mask had just bought her dinner and they were eating at a table for two in full view of the restaurant staff and other diners.

"People think we're together," she grumbled, dipping her head further until her chin almost collided with her bowl.

"We are together," Kevin said with a small shrug.

Rinko glared at him through her hair, wondering if he was mocking her or just so accustomed to getting attention wherever he went that he did not realise why this situation was so embarrassing and awkward for her.

"They think we're… "together"," she tried again.

"We are together," Kevin said again, much to her chagrin.

"They think we came here together!" she snapped, lifting her head to look directly at him. "By choice!"

Rinko waited for Kevin to respond, waited for him to suddenly snap to his senses and hear what was being said around them, for him to acknowledge her predicament and offer some sort of assistance; but infuriatingly, he instead poked a straw into his mask and began drinking from his bowl of tea instead.

"Kevin, people think we're here as a couple," Rinko ground out, silently hoping that the heat she could feel in her face was merely the steam from her noodles and not her encroaching embarrassment.

To her relief, the tea slid back down the straw and Kevin's eyes thinned a little as though he was beginning to understand her implied meaning. Realising that he would only understand frankness in such a situation, Rinko continued.

"Everybody here thinks we're here on a date. It's very awkward."

Kevin pulled the straw from his mask and carefully laid it down by his bowl. He inched his head to one side, apparently looking over at the large gathering of teenage girls in one corner of the room. They all began giggling and shushing themselves as they caught him looking their way. He then turned in the other direction, slowly looking around the other tables. Rinko copied his actions, finding that, as had been the case when they had first entered the restaurant, just about every pair of eyes in the room was looking in their direction.

"People are strange," Kevin concluded, turning back to Rinko. "You should just ignore them. That's what I usually do."

Rinko sighed, rolling her eyes in despair.

"This is really, really embarrassing for me!" she hissed.

"Why?" Kevin asked flatly. "Because they think that you're my girlfriend?"

"Yes!" she replied, relieved that he finally appeared to understand the situation.

"I see," he said with a nod. "They've seen you with Mantaro, they've seen you with Jade and now they see you with me. I suppose that makes you seem like a "groupie". Though personally, that's all I ever thought you were anyway."

Rinko's jaw dropped and her breath halted in her throat. Kevin apparently could not see that he had offended her, or else simply did not care, as he poked the straw down through the eyehole of his mask again and began drinking his tea, seemingly oblivious to her shock and disgust at his words.

"You're so insensitive!" she hissed out.

She wanted to yell at him but also did not want to draw any more attention to their table.

"I understand now why you don't have any friends," she added. "You're rude and thoughtless and you don't understand other people at all! You should always be alone!"

"I like being alone," Kevin calmly replied, his voice sounding loud to Rinko after her own whispered tone.

"Well good!" Rinko snapped. "Because you always will be!"

Rinko growled in frustration as a sucking sound began to resonate from Kevin's bowl, indicating that he had almost finished his beverage and was trying to suck up the small remaining puddle from the bottom of the bowl. He really was quite horrid, she thought to herself. She silently wished that Tamaki and Keiko were with her: they were both so enamoured with Kevin Mask, but Rinko was certain that if the girls spent even five minutes with him they would quickly change their opinions. She doubted they would last much longer than that, since she herself had barely managed a full day in his company.

And, just as she had been sure that her situation could not possibly get any more awkward, Rinko suddenly found herself engulfed by a gaggle of giggling schoolgirls thrusting notebooks and cameras in Kevin's general direction. She watched in reluctant interest as he quietly signed a few autographs, allowed himself to be photographed whilst the girls pressed themselves against him and he politely declined to join them at their table. On his last action, the girls all turned to Rinko, glaring at her with almost murderous intent. Rinko stared back at them with wide, innocent and fearful eyes. She audibly sighed in relief when they eventually left again and pushed her bowl away having suddenly lost her appetite.

Looking across the table she was suddenly aware that Kevin had eaten his own meal, and she still had not seen how. She wondered if he was mocking her. She suspected that he had a sneaky facet to his personality: after all, he had been very sneaky to build that tent around her in her sleep and to have kept his face hidden every time he ate. Maybe, she thought, he had devised a way to eat without removing the mask just like how he drank with straws wedged into his mask. But surely he removed the mask sometimes? It was quite jagged and made of steel, so sleeping in it was surely out of the question. And he had to brush his teeth.

And he had to vomit.

Rinko grinned slyly as an idea occurred to her. If she could find a way to make Kevin sick he would have to remove his mask to throw up.

Her smile vanished. What was she thinking? Not only was that cruel and disgusting, but it was irrelevant. She did not need to see his face. She did not even care what it looked like.

"Are you alright?"

Rinko snapped out of her thoughts at the sound of Kevin's voice. He was looking directly at her, and, she thought darkly, he probably had been looking directly at her as she was scheming and therefore seen the changes in her expressions.

She started to blush again.

"We should go," she said.

She tried to ignore the twinge of guilt she felt as Kevin began counting out money to cover the cost of their meals. She turned her head away from the scene in the hope of finding some relief; but instead her eyes landed on the group of Kevin Mask fans, who were still glaring at her in a way that made her physically shiver. She hurriedly grabbed up her bag and began winding her way through the tables towards the door. She tried to shut the door of the restaurant in Kevin's face as he started after her, but misjudged the length of his strides and found that the door merely clanked against one of his enormous boots.

"Here," he said as he stepped outside.

Rinko frowned at his outstretched hand, unsure if she was pleased or not with what she found. She lifted her eyes to Kevin's masked face and tilted her head a little as she tried to reason why he occasionally did thoughtful things, but apparently he took her look as a questioning one as he answered an unspoken question.

"You've almost finished the ones you have," he explained. "I thought you might like some more. And I know you're too young to buy them yourself."

"You're too young too," Rinko grumbled, grabbing the packet of cigarettes from his hand. "They just sell to you because they're afraid of you."

"You're welcome," Kevin dryly replied.

"I never said that I was grateful," Rinko corrected him. "I was trying to quit. I usually only smoke when I'm stressed out about something. I was smoking last night because I was worried about Mantaro and I smoked this morning because I was hungry and I had no money."

"I see."

"My mother would kill me if she knew that I was smoking again."

"But she doesn't care that you've run off after an idiot like Mantaro Kinniku?"

Rinko thrust the packet of cigarettes into her bag and scowled angrily at Kevin.

"First of all, Mantaro is not an idiot!" she corrected him. "And secondly, how dare you talk about my mother? You don't even know her! How would you like it if I started calling your mother an idiot?"

Kevin faltered a little and Rinko smiled.

"I thought so," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

He nodded his head and turned from her.

"We should keep going," he said quietly.

"Sure," Rinko agreed.

They started walking away from the restaurant and Rinko felt distinctly smug about her victory over Kevin in their little verbal debate. She held her head up high and smirked smugly to herself; but her moment of glory was short-lived as a loud banging sound at her side suddenly made her double over in shock. Turning her head to the source of the sound she found Kevin's fans inside the restaurant all banging on the window to get his attention. Glancing at Kevin she saw that he had not even flinched and was still walking on as though nothing had happened. Turning back to the girls Rinko yelped and leapt back from the window as she saw them kiss the glass and press themselves against it.

Rinko had never noticed girls behaving that way around Mantaro.

"Hey, Kevin!" she called, hurrying after him. "Is it always like this for you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered gruffly.

"Those girls," Rinko explained. "Is that what it's like for you? Girls always chasing after you?"

"I wouldn't know."

"What?"

Kevin's answer did not make any sense to Rinko but she could tell by his tone and his tensed shoulders that he did not intend to discuss the matter any further. Mentally she told herself his tattoo, his mother and his fans were subjects he would not talk about and so she would have to let her curiosity about all three subside.

"Kevin?" she asked instead. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

Kevin grunted out an illegible noise and turned to glare at Rinko as though she had just deeply insulted him somehow.

"I was just curious," she said with a shrug. "You said you're always alone but those girls seemed to really like you. I just wondered."

"I see."

Rinko waited for Kevin to answer her but instead he walked on in silence. She rapidly lost her patience when he did not so much as look her way again, determined that this was one subject that she would make him talk about, if only to prove to herself that he was human.

"So…" she said slowly. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Do you mean like how Mantaro has you?" he asked.

Rinko hesitated, still unsure if even she considered herself to be Mantaro's girlfriend. He certainly saw her as his girlfriend, but she was not quite so sure. She did really care about him and they had been out a few times on what some would consider to be dates.

"Yeah," she eventually replied.

"Then no," Kevin said. "I don't have a girlfriend. I don't have a frivolous little girl with mixed loyalties who follows me around needlessly."

Rinko yelped indignantly at the insult but Kevin ignored her response. He had refused to talk about the other personal issues she had broached with him but she was suddenly glad that he had since apparently the only response he saw fit to give to such a line of questioning was a rude one.

"It's lucky that you like being alone, because you always will be!" she snapped.

"You already said that," Kevin calmly reminded her.

"Well, it was so relevant, I thought I'd say it again!"

"How nice."

Rinko growled and kicked at an empty glass bottle, almost enjoying the racket it made as it bounced along the ground and finally smashed against the wall of a nearby building. She hoped that she would finally catch up with Mantaro the following day because she doubted she would survive another day with Kevin Mask.

"I'm staying here tonight."

Rinko stopped short, turning to see that Kevin had stopped by the doorway of a small hotel. She looked about herself in silent admission that it was late, she was tired and a comfortable bed for the night did sound preferable to sleeping outside on the cold, hard and wet ground again.

"What are you going to do?"

Rinko's face dropped.

"Um… What?" she asked cautiously.

"You don't have any money, do you intend to sleep outside again?" Kevin asked.

Rinko felt her face twitch in what probably looked like a ridiculous gesture to Kevin; but he did not respond and so she tried to tell herself that he had not seen her reaction to his words.

"I uh…" she began, looking about herself again.

She had been expecting Kevin to pay for a room for her too: after all, he had been feeding her and supplying her with cigarettes, water and snacks, it seemed only logical that he would get her a room for the night too. She wondered if she ought to pretend that she might run away if he did not pay for her to stay at the hotel, but the idea then dawned on her that if she did use that argument, he might force her to stay in the same room as him which would be really awkward.

"Make up your mind, it's getting late," Kevin said a little impatiently.

"Right, well…" Rinko began nervously. "I'll just…"

But still she did not know what she wished to do next.


End file.
